Julia’s Top 9 Metal Albums Of 2022

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OH GOD I’M THREE DAYS LATE

Q: Who are you? A: I’m Julia.

Q: Why should I trust you? A: One, I listen to more metal than Satan. Two, no one is paying me to convince you Poppy is good.

Q: Why nine? A: That’s as many albums as I loved this year.

Q: In what order? A: Alphabetical.

JULIA’S TOP 9METAL ALBUMS OF 2022

Artificial Brain — Artificial Brain — Profound Lore Records

(Artificial Brain.)

Spinning “Artificial Brain” on Artificial Brain by Artificial Brain, one might expect a classic stomper in the vein of eponymity aficionados like Motorhead or Iron Maiden. That what follows is instead two minutes of blasting tech-death is only the first of many surprises. Shocker #2 is the ease with which Artificial Brain marries themes of robotic empire with surrealism, their machine hammering washed out in oniric production and at times the sort of blackened riffs reserved for the most arboreal of metal. If androids dream of anything, it’s of this album.

Devil Master — Ecstasies of Never Ending Night — Relapse Records

(Punkened heavy black metal.)

Black metal’s straightforwardness draws it tight to classic punk, another genre formed against the demands of overintricacy. With this connection in mind, Devil Master’s second album delivers ten songs of mid-pace gallop. Ecstasies of Never Ending Night manages what few “throwback” sounds can by excavating a true treasure — mythical hardcore band G.I.S.M. — to the delight of an unsuspecting audience. This ripper of an album closes with a dollop of gothic dance-synth, latest in the lineage of danse macabres that is rock music.

Esoctrilihum — Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh — I, Voidhanger Records

(Black metal.)

Esoctrilihum’s sole member Asthâghul has earned his cred by releasing an endless slew (like, two-plus LPs a year endless) of outré black metal with bizarre instrumentation and themes outside the genre’s purview. Well, fuck that: Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh is forty minutes of hammering violence. It’s to his credit that his weirdo production still flourishes, as sprinkles of piano in “Sydtg”, recurring stereo ghosts in closer “Aath”. Spiritüs Flesh is as shocking and unwelcoming as the best black metal, a rabid explosion from otherwise one of the most pensive musicians in metal.

Immolation — Acts of God — Nuclear Blast

(Anti-harmonic, anti-religious death metal.)

To epithetize a thirty years strong band as “fathers of dissonant death metal” feels reductive: Immolation’s eleventh (!!) studio album, Acts of God, contains some of the most meticulous melodies on the old side of the death metal school. Immolation’s discography is a testament to failure, one the years have honed into unerring success.

Sigh — Shiki — Peaceville Records

(Avant-black.)

Sigh’s corpus is a collection of all the world’s music ran through the blender of black metal. Shiki sticks closest to their home, implementing traditional Japanese music in its composition and instrumentation. In this respect it mirrors its predecessor, Heir to Despair, though it carries a much heavier weight: the passing of the seasons, the closeness of death. Sigh transcend themselves with each delivery.

SpiritWorld — DEATHWESTERN — Century Media

(Spaghetti groove-thrash.)

One of many would-be bandmates once said that thrash reminded him of westerns, with its galloping kicks, gunshot snare and scream-in-the-wind vocals. SpiritWorld agrees. Whip-taut at thirty minutes, DEATHWESTERN takes to its theme with no fluff or gimmicks. Acoustic guitars quickdraw into the title track, a Cormac Mccarthy letter of self-loathing soaked in riffs like liquid courage. The rest of the album flows so cowboyishly despite its dearth of Morricone, it makes one wonder how there aren’t already hundreds of western metal albums: here’s two genres about greed, violence, and the intoxicating tragedy of power.

Undeath — It’s Time… To Rise from the Grave — Prosthetic Records

(Death metal, what else?)

I may be the only listener for whom Undeath’s romping music qualifies as “slow burn”: somewhere around my sixth listen of It’s Time…, I realized I’d memorized every chorus on the album. Having established themselves as death metal’s catchiest (un)living band, the quintet’s sophomore tests their hooks with everything from blasts and breakdowns to odd time signatures and bizarre production flourishes. The result, at exactly the same runtime as their debut, is the rare victory of a band that consciously succeeds in outdoing themselves. Trampled headstones!

Wormrot — Hiss — Earache Records

(Grindin’-fast genre-crushin’.)

Wormrot transcend their reputation. After two albums of the best grindcore in decades, and a swerve for shoegazing, they now break the genre they once remade. With founding vocalist Arif leaving the three-piece, Hiss certainly sounds like a swan song, bipolar with anger and a melancholia rarely seen at 300 BPM. Wormrot runs through death metal, black metal, hardcore, post-hardcore and symphonics, all without taking their foot off the pedal. What better way for the century’s decisive grindcore band to go out than by defining the sound of post-grindcore?

Wiegedood — There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road — Century Media

(Psycho-rage black metal.)

The instinctive acceptation of ‘psychedelic’ is a sort of purple-green stoner kaleidoscope. There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road offers instead a seeing-red psychosis, kicking three seconds into “FN SCAR 16” and never relenting. Having wrapped up a trilogy of devout black metal, Wiegedood now play in trigger-fingered staccato, their songs viciously cycling with the recoil. It is, like so much extreme music, a response to a worsening world: under enough pressure, even our saints will crack.