The Best Albums of 2022
Anxious Sound
10
Insurmountable
Primitive Man
4-Song LP
Released May 13 on Closed Casket Activities
Favorite tracks: Boiled, Quiet
09
Nature Morte
Big|Brave
6-Song LP
Released February 24 on Thrill Jockey
Favorite tracks: My Hope Renders Me a Fool, The Fable of Subjugation
08
Milk for Flowers
H. Hawkline
10-Song LP
Released March 10 on Heavenly
Favorite tracks: Milk for Flowers, Denver, Like You Do, Mostly, Empty Room
07
Compact Trauma
Ulrika Spacek
10-Song LP
Released March 10 on Tough Love
Favorite tracks: It Will Come Sometime, Diskbanksrealism, Through France with Snow, Compact Trauma, Stuck at the Door
06
Past Lives OST
Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen
16-Song LP
Released June 9 on A24
Favorite tracks: If You Leave Something Behind, Crossing, I Remember You, We Live Here, Why Are You Going to New York, Eight Thousand Layers
05
Formal Growth in the Desert
Protomartyr
12-Song LP
Released June 2 on Domino
Favorite tracks: Make Way, For Tomorrow, Let's Tip the Creator
04
Suffocating Hallucination
Full of Hell & Primitive Man
5-Song LP
Released March 3 on Closed Casket Activities
Favorite tracks: Rubble Home, Tunnels to God
03
The Gray In Between
Jeromes Dream
10-Song LP
Released May 5 on Microspy / Iodine
Favorite tracks: South by Isolation, Pines on the Hill (with Guests), The Last Water Pearl
02
All Fiction
Pile
10-Song LP
Released February 17 on Exploding in Sound
Favorite tracks: It Comes Closer, Gardening Hours, Link Arms, Blood, Lowered Rainbow, Poisons, Nude with a Suitcase, Neon Gray
01
Last
Loma Prieta
11-Song LP
Released June 30 on Deathwish
Favorite tracks: Sequitur, NSAIDs, Sunlight, Dose, Fire in Black & White, Circular Saw, Symbios, Glare
Since their start in San Francisco, California, in 2005, Loma Prieta have demonstrated dizzying musical dexterity, blending elements of screamo, post-hardcore, and punk to create songs that attack with turbulent intensity.
Last is Loma Prieta's first full-length LP since Self Portrait (2015), and its 11 tracks remain faithful to the band's ethos. Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden Studios (Deafheaven, Gouge Away) recorded Self Portrait and Last, so it’s no surprise that the two albums share a sonic thumbprint. However, where Self Portrait and previous efforts often sounded shadowed or dimly lit (Loma Prieta translates to “Dark Hill”), Last is noticeably brighter. Light brazenly breaks through across the record (hear tracks “Circular Saw,” “Symbios,” and “Glare”). The result is a more dynamic experience charged with raw emotion and a diversity of mood and tone.
