Top 20 Albums of 2022 by Saxy S

I think the band misprinted "Wow" for an album title!

This is one of the best progressive death metal albums I've ever heard. Not since Opeth has a band been able to expertly craft extended songs with elegance and conviction. And it's all anchored through a composition that ebbs and flows through trials and tribulations with beauty; only exploding when it needs to. An album that takes influence from prog death and atmospheric black metal to create something all on its own. I can only hope more artists take notice.

Blut aus Nord's newest epic takes the avant-garde stylings of Oranssi Pazuzu and drenches them in a cloud of haze and hallucinogen's to effortlessly encapsulate everything about what makes Lovecraftian horror so poignant. It's just as terrifying, but in a way, somehow relatable, like a sympathetic antagonist in a movie or novel.

Dvvell are the newest members of the Doom metal scene to remind us how important Ahab's brand of songwriting is. While this album is crushing in atmosphere and dread, it never feels like the album is meandering. It builds and drowns when necessary and each of these four tracks continue to grow until their conclusion. I expect great things from this group in the future.

One of my last venture's into the eclectic world of Bandcamp metal brought me to Dreadnought; an older group who originally begun closer to black metal, have peeled off their old skin and have embraced some gorgeous post-metal techniques. Like with many records near the top of this list, The Endless does not ramble; it's precise with its themes, melodies and motifs.

This record showed up on the tail end of my critic nonsense this year and I was very impressed. Doing a Deftones impression was good enough, but then you made a better Muse album than Muse themselves!

Imperial Triumphant's brand of avant-garde death metal should not work for me, but here we are talking about it on a list of the best albums of 2022. The jazz-y flourishes that were sprinkled throughout Alphaville have been replaced with modernist classical stylings and it gives them a very different flavour; one that is more complimentary to the bands apocalyptic sound.

I might have said "I struggle to put it in my short list for AOTY" when I reviewed this, but here we are. Unlike another post-metal album higher up on the list, it's not quite as an attention grabber. But it's still very good atmospheric post-metal with wonderful melodies and motifs. And the limited space for full metal explosions works wonders.

Thrash metal isn't that hard to make, so how everyone manages to screw it up is baffling. Critical Defiance are to the point and almost too direct here. In a phrase, No Life Forms is short and sweet, just like this description box.

Okay, some explaining here. I never cared much for Northlane before 2022, but for some reason, Obsidian made for some very charming alternative metalcore. I never could have expected it to surpass albums below it on this list, but the catchiness and replayable factor slowly had it creep up my list all year.

The best Revolution album of 2022 has less in common with hardcore music than any FFAA album. This is closer to technical death metal, but with breakdowns. The compositions are usually well constructed with unifying motifs and a progressive flare, which alone makes it far greater than a normal "chugg-chugg-chugg" metalcore album.

It's not the best Saor record, but it's still really damn great. Andy Marshall is channeling Agalloch here as this album has less in common with black metal than ever before. But the melodies in the guitars and vocals are more prominent than ever and turns their native Scotland into the most beautiful freezing tundra I've ever heard!

I figured this would be a good spot for Rolo Tomassi since Saor is directly above it. I still do enjoy this record, but it loses points for missing the identity that made me so enamored by this group on the last record that being the mathcore techniques. But still, when it comes to making a post-metal album, Rolo Tomassi have been slowly tip-toing down this path for a while and it's great to see their vision fully realized.

It is not as good as 2019's album of the year, but Wilderun's newest record is not trying to be as epic as before. This is a darker record, despite all of the symphonic elements and soaring choral passages, and Wilderun were able to make it work as it sounds closer to their 2015 album.

Another album that fell throughout the year, but was saved by a handful of very memorable tunes that became some of my favourites in the year, most notably, "Nowhere To Go".

This album fell throughout the year, but whenever I went back to hear it again, I was reminded why I enjoyed it; A well balanced hybrid of Deftones, Chevelle and mid 2000s Underoath. This is a "mellow"-hardcore album that compliments the intensity of other Revolution records this year.

It's not metal, but if it's on Metal Academy it counts!

Alexisonfire's first album in thirteen years fixes many of my initial criticisms of the last album (most notably George's sing/scream vocals), by having more of Dallas. It's a more mellow Alexisonfire and I'm all here for it!

A grower for sure. An album that has more than its fair share of commonalities with Dillinger Escape Plan, but like with Lamb of God, Greyhaven are not going to simply play it straight and call it a day. This album has strong variety and, most importantly, consistency.

Even though tagged as technical death metal, this is a record that has more in common from a compositional standpoint with progressive death. I really enjoyed how Inanna were able to blend technical performances with catchy tunes.

Heavy and filthy grooves with wonderful guitar melodies and some very potent lyricism remind me why I am still more forgiving towards sludge metal than most.

It's been great to see a heavier Lamb of God return to prominence following Randy Blythe's incarceration. It has a nostalgic flare, while still not being a cut-and-paste retread of older records.