Best of 2022 – If You Can’t Find Something New You Like, You’re Just Lazy
By Darin Brock
The upside to 2022? Despite being a lesser act of the shitshow that’s been playing for the last three years, it was a damn good year for music – both for new music and new discoveries to add to my library. Since 4CF started this annual year-end write-up of music, there have been times where I’ve struggled to find 10 albums I thought were mentioning in “best of” list. This year, the struggle was to pare down the list. Two selections are prior to 2022, but they are too good not to mention. Had I discovered them earlier, they would have most definitely been on my year-end lists. Some old favorites come back to life and once again, the ladies seem to be creating the more interesting music as of late.
The Beths – Expert In A Dying Field
(Carpark Records – September 2022)
New Zealand’s The Beths 2018 debut “Future Me Hates Me” was about as perfect a debut any band could have. The follow up was solid, but not quite as memorable. This year they dropped their third album and it managed to capture the magic of the debut and in many way surpass it. On “Dying Field” you hear a band that has matured as both musicians and songwriting.
Beth’s frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes has gone from writing driving pop punk garage tunes to crafting more traditionally structured songs, but without losing any of the raw enthusiasm and punk distortion. Her lyrics have grown and they have become something to listen for as you take in the melody. The album begins with the line, “ I can close the door on us, but the room still exists. And I know you’re in it.” Great stuff. Nothing at all to dislike about this album.
Top tracks: “Knees Deep,” “When You Know You Know,” “Head in the Clouds,” and the title track.
Bodega – Broken Equipment
(What’s Your Rupture? – March 2022)
So I can’t find much information on this band. All they really have out the world is this badass sophomore collection produced by Parquet Courts member Austin Brown. It was a “People Also Listened” connection to Parquet Courts that helped me discover them. How the hell to describe the sound inside is my biggest challenge. This 5-member collective toss ingredients from 70’s era Wire, Brian Eno, post punk synth noodling, driving punk bass lines and timelessly catchy guitar into a blender and create a casserole of tunes you never get full from. Wash it down with some clever and appropriately anti-establishment lyrics and you got a fine musical meal.
Top Tracks: “Statuette on the Dashboard,” “Pillar on the Bridge of You,” and “How Can I Help Ya?”
Bad Bad Hats – Walkman
(Don Giovanni Records – September 2021)
I told you this was coming in the intro. Minneapolis-based Bad Bad Hats teeter on that twee movement that was big in the early 2000’s. Lead singer/lyricist Kerry Alexander’s voice fits that description a bit, but the music sways from organic roots indie to some crunchy garage riffs keep the album from blowing away in the wind like a vegan wearing a puffy shirt on a windy day. A clean sound with no studio bullshit to muck up the works lets you hear each riff and Alexander’s low-key funny lyrics. This would have been on last year’s list had I stumbled across their greatness 10 months earlier.
Top tracks: “Detroit Basketball,” “Milky Way,” and “Awkward Phase.”
Cory Branan – When I Go I Ghost
(Bluélan Records – October 2022)
What Dave Hause is to Philadephia, Cory Branan is to Memphis – a great rock-leaning Americana songwriter spinning musical tales from the region that shaped them. Where Hause can get a little formulaic with the delivery, Branan draws on Stax’s Memphis horns and soul, roots rock, and indie country sound that made Uncle Tupelo and early Wilco famous to keep the delivery fresh. With “When I Go” you get an artist at his lyrical best. Branan’s gritty southern drawl sounds at home with those Stax-styled horns on “The Look I Lost,” or the collection of 80’s-styled pop tunes he sprinkles into the works like “One Happy New Year” and “When I Leave Here.” Don’t worry, there’s no gated snare. The album is at its best when he blends solid power chords with the Delta country on which he got his start. This is an album you put on and let it repeat. The more I listen to the album, the higher on my list it probably needs to be.
Top Tracks: “When I Go I Ghost,” “Waterfront,” “One Happy New Year,” and “Come On If You Wanna Come.”
The Jazz Butcher – The Highest In The Land
(Tapete Records – February 2022)
2021 closed with the unexpected, tragic death of Jazz Butcher main man, Pat Fish. “The Highest in the Land” followed in Feb. 2022. In all honesty, there was probably no way this album would not have been on my “best of 2022” list. Luckily for you the reader – and hopefully future listeners – this is a damn fine album with or without the tragedy.
Fish has long been considered one of the U.K.’s most talented, but under-recognized, singer/songrwiters of the early 80’s to the late 90’s. HITL shows that despite some time way from the studio (2012 – Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers, of which Bruce and I are in the “thank you” credits), and a bout with cancer did little to stiffle the creative genius of The Jazz Butcher. Fish strides in and takes center stage like everybody’s favorite gruff but lovable, darkly hilarious uncle at every family gathering and delivers 8 tales filled with melancholy, low-key indignation, and WTF-is-wrong-with-all-of-you-people themes.
It is an album by a man who is facing his own mortality, but it never wallows in pity. Instead, the listener is encouraged to not feel sorry for the singer, but go on fighting the good fight. If you are not welling up by the end of “Never Give Up,” you aren’t a human – either religious or atheist. A touching and brilliant farewell.
Top Tracks: “Running on Fumes,” “Sebastian’s Medication,” and “Never Give Up.”
Cheekface – Too Much To Ask
(Not On Label – August 2022)
“If you’re the light of my life, then why is it always so dark?” It’s the lyric-focused greatness of any Cheekface song that landed them on my number 1 spot last year. They’re back with “Too Much To Ask” and in my top 10 this year. Songwriters Greg Katz and Amanda Tannen focus their songs on dry humor, non-stop one liners, stream of thought randomness and obscure references that are as funny as they are confusing. While somewhat simplistic, the music is always infectious and original. Tannen drops some of the grooviest bass lines that provide all the melody the tunes need. One of the more original sounding bands out there. They describe themselves as “America’s Favorite Local Artist.” Do yourself a favor and visit their neighborhood.
Top tracks: “We Need A Bigger Dumpster,” “Pledge Drive,” and “You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East.”
Ed Haynes – In His Latest Mystery EP/A Man Walks Into a Bar
(Self Released – 2020 and 2018)
In 4CF lore, Ed Haynes has become a legend based on his sadly long-out-print 1989 debut LP “Ed Haynes Sings Ed Haynes” based on the song “Splash.” Sporadic, but brilliant recordings would follow. Somewhere along the way I missed his 2018, “A Man Walks Into A Bar” and a 2020 EP, “In His Latest Mystery.”
Few artists can find the dark sardonic humor in everyday occurrences and stories. Fewer still can take touchy subjects like suicide, school shootings, and hipster culture and expose the source problems through the eyes of the perpetrator. Bowling alley workers, swinger dentists, 1970’s era sports, pretentious beer makers, angry bakers, Steve McQueen & Karl Malden movies, lower middle class playboys, and picnics featuring Bobby Fisher and J.D. Salinger are all the song menu. Even songs that top 6 and 7 minutes never seem to drag thanks to Hayne’s incredible storytelling and accomplished guitar playing. “Grain Silo Stainless Tank” might be one of my three top songs I discovered this year.
Think Lou Reed at his darkest + Warren Zevon at his most clever/humorous = Ed Haynes work here.
Top Tracks: “Grain Silo Stainless Tank,” “Bowling Alley Boy,” and “50 Simple Things
Frank Turner – FTHC
(Polydor – February 2022)
Hanging out with the increasingly annoying Fat Mike and NoFX seems to have kicked something loose in the more pop/folk oriented Frank Turner. Turner’s roots are in punk, but he found wider success in his British folk with some power chords and lyrics of frustration. With FTHC (Frank Tuner Hardcore), he returns to his roots. Album opener “Non Serviam” is a 1:54 punch in the face that announce what the next 13 tunes will be. It’s not until song #8 that we hit anything mid-tempo, the powerful and heartwrenching “A Wave Across the Bay,” a tribute to a friend gone too soon.
There are a smattering of Turner’s more traditional sound, but each song has such a sense of urgency, they fit in with the punkier tunes. For all the same reasons I love Cory Branan, Frank Turner is the U.K. equal. Just give this album a listen.
Top Tracks: “Perfect Score,” “A Wave Across the Bay,” and “Haven’t Been Doing So Well.”
Too Much Joy – All These Fucking Feelings
(Propellor Sound Records – October 2022)
Too Much Joy created one of my favorite albums of the early 90’s, Cereal Killers. By the end of the decade, they were done.
For all the evil that streaming has done to music, it has had the benefit of making it easier to release new music without a huge records company backing you. In 2020, TMJ were back, with all four original members and the replacement bass player. “All These Fucking Feelings” continues the band’s sarcastic/sophomoric, but yet oddly intelligent that made them popular on college radio in the 90’s. It gives me hope to hear guys my age and slightly older having such a good time and not really feeling the need to change mush. Their small but rabid fan base crowd funded this effort and it doesn’t break new ground, but if you’re buying a TMJ album, that’s not what you’re after. The cluttered power pop and punk is still intact..and yes occasionally over-produced.
However, the snark, biting social commentary, and 14-year-old humor in the lyrics are on full display. At 13 tracks, the schtick never tires thanks to a variety of music styles and yes, sparing use of an accordion. By the time the final song “Slightly Beautiful” comes to a close, you’ve just completes a 45-minute musical excursion of too much joy. No weak tracks here, and that final track is my current favorite song.
Top Tracks: ”Slightly Beautiful,” “I Met A Ghost,” “What Pricks We Were” and “Fucking Feelings.”
Wet Leg – Wet Leg
(Domino – April 2022)
When the videos and singles for “Chaise Lounge” and “Wet Dream” blew up in summer of ‘21, I wondered if Wet Leg would continue to create their unique sound for an entire album. They followed with “Too Late Now” that was solid, but not on the same level and “Oh No,” which I hated. Two more heavily hyped singles were released “Angelica” and “Ur Mum” (both are great), giving us a total of 6 songs, but no album.
When the self-titled album finally dropped in April ‘22, it seemed like a greatest hits album already. The good thing is the six new songs that weave the singles together are all pretty solid on their own. “The boozy wobble of “Supermarket” is my favorite. Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chanbers have a unique songwriting style and dare I say it, look and sound like they’re having a blast doing it. Regardless of what you’ve read, this debut most certainly lived up to the hype.
Top Tracks: “Chaise Lounge,” “Ur Mum,” and “Supermarket”
Honorable Mentions
- Night Crickets – Night Crickets: A David J side project that shows what a versatile talent he is.
- The Plains – I Walked with You a While: Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) and Jess Williamson combine on some Americana pop/country greatness.
- Camp Trash – The Long Way, The Slow Way: Florida quartet breathes some new life into 90’s guitar pop a la Velvet Crush
- Bob Vylan – Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life: A punch in the face and everything Run The Jewels and Death Grips wish they could be.
- Beach Bunny – Emotional Creature: More of the same, but the same is a collection of great, heartfelt guitar pop.
