Black Thought + Danger Mouse – Cheat Codes

After over 15 years “in the making,” Danger Mouse and Black Thought’s joint album came out this year and to my ears lives up to the hype.  Sounding like a lost time capsule from the past, thanks in large part to DM’s fuzzy soul beats, gives the whole affair a timeless classic sound.  Black Thought’s voice carries intelligent authority weaving lyrical webs that prove once again that he is one of the GOATs.  And to top it all off a killer DOOM verse from beyond the grave on Belize (calling back the great goofy Adultswim sponsored Mouse and the Mask Danger Mouse/DOOM collab with a Black Thought feature…full circle). 

Bjork – Fossora

This is the Bjorkest Bjork has ever Bjorked.  To me it feels like this album, more so than any other one, is built using all the tools learned from her endless experimentations over the last 30 years.  She described this as a dancing alone in your room type of album, which is very true…though I’ve danced all around my house to it.  The breadth of instrumentation and seamless blending styles on this album is truly stunning: strings, woodwinds, brass, choirs, and electronica.  She used all her tools available to make her most immersive album yet.  With it being her “mushroom” album, it does feel grounded, but in an alien way.  Like we are shrunk down to near microscopic sizes, experiencing the world as worms or single cellular creatures…reacting to the natural symphonies of the wind, and the dirt and the bugs.  Fossora is about the connection of all things on a molecular level, and while to me it feels like a cumulative achievement, I know that to Bjork it’s just another album on her journey, just as important as each one before and each one after.  I love Bjork.

Zola Jesus - Arkhon

I feel such a connection with this album, perhaps because I got to see parts of her process during the pandemic as we got Patreon updates.  Musically its such a leap in so many ways, production being one of the big things.  The sound is big and mixed to perfection and having turned her tracks over to a session drummer and bassist to evolve, these songs became big pop art tracks.  Could prove to be a major step in her evolution as she’s typically been a self-produced artist in the past, and has probably grown all she can within that limitation for the time being.  And yet the highlight is the simply beautiful acoustic piano and voice track, Desire.  A milestone of an album for an artist still evolving and finding herself 10+ years into her career.

Boris – W

This year Boris celebrated their 30th anniversary as a band by releasing 3 phenomenal albums, each within three of their main stylistic areas: heavy rock, drone metal and experimental ambientish psychedelic freakout.  W, serves in part as somehow cleaning up the loose threads from last year’s thrash punk masterpiece NO (NO + W=NOW, get it?), but also stands on its own as a psychedelic vibe.  Floating on waves of feedback, tentacles of terror grasp from the darkness but fade to smoke upon hearing a siren’s song across the ocean din.  A few tracks of dirge doom accentuate the journey towards the end, but overall, it’s a pleasant place to sink into…a sensory deprivation chamber in audio form.  

Venom Prison – Erebus

Venom Prison already have a history of taking giant evolutionary steps with each album and Erebus is no exception with this being the first solid step toward crossover potential.  The riffs are still progressively putrid, and the punishing primal screams of Larissa Stupar still gut wrenching, conveying intelligent expressions of anger at various forms of toxic male behaviors/drawing parallels with Greek mythology.  On Pain of Oizys, Larissa shows off her clean goth rock vocals with the trip hop style of the track still ending up a great introduction to the band with the powerful stadium death metal ending.  The production choices were brilliant, crystal-clear drums and leads, the crunch always solid…just perfect modern production for technical death metal, with colorful flashes of ambient tones lending to ominous transitions throughout.  Another chapter in what seems certain to be a legendary career.

Action Bronson – Cocodrillo Turbo

I’ve been a casual fan of Action for a while, but mostly for his cooking and “Watching Ancient Alien” shows, up until a few years ago when I really gave his music a chance and became a fan.  On Crocodilo, his charisma is on full display, which combined with a ridiculous sense of style, peppering his clever wordplay with absurd morsels of teenage humor makes for a nonstop laugh fest.  But the secret weapon is the psychedelic journey through the wilderness that is the beats.  The whole thing is only 30 minutes long, but it’s lean with no filler.  Every sound and nonsensical skit serves to keep you moving on the roller coaster ride.  This album just gets me hype and laughing at the same time.  Start a party off with this to set the tone for the evening.  Turbo.  Turbo.

Willi Carlisle – Peculiar, Missouri

Finding Willi is all thanks to KJHK, where I think I’d heard Vanlife a few times before I finally paid attention and immediately checked out his latest album.  This is Great Plains folk music, with dashes of country in the proper proportions.  He’s a helluva songwriter able to cover all kinds of topics with a down home genius philosophy.  Great road album for sure, with lots of great story songs to make you think.

Zeal & Ardor – Zeal & Ardor

Z&A are a meme band that turned out to be good, mostly in the beginning on the strength of founder Manuel Gagneux’s musical talents.  Now on their third album Manuel is able to fully write for himself through the “gimmick” of the band, and the results are vastly elevated as a result.  Sure, there’s plenty of fire and brimstone Satan blues metal pageantry on this self-titled effort, but Zeal & Ardor have become a fully fledged road tested band with some great songs backing them up.  There are some obvious nu metal batches on the bands sleeve, used in the most tasteful head banging ways possible here, giving rounder edges to some of the jagged black metal influences driving the riffage.

Tyler Childers – Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven

I certainly had reservations when I learned that Tyler’s new album would be gospel leaning, but upon hearing it I realized I had heard almost all the songs before during his 2-night live stream from Red Rocks…and they’re all great songs.  Just feel good, down home country church music expertly performed by his top notch band, probably one of the best country bands on stage right now.  They’re tighter than rusty lug nuts, especially the drummer…picture a country Buddy Miles cement mixing the back beat with deft precision.  I will say that I rarely listen to the 2nd big band gospel or 3rd ambient triphop versions of the songs and stick to the Hallelujah versions which seem to be the definitive to my ears.  Can’t wait to see him next summer in St. Louis.  Fuck you Ticketmaster.

Boris – Heavy Rocks 2022

Boris’ 28th studio album, the 3rd one titled Heavy Rocks, and their 2nd album on this year’s list.  Boris’ interpretation of 70s proto-metal, fist pumping anthems with synthesized horn blasts driving the already muscle car riffing tracks, over the edge into turbo overdrive.  Boris are still at the height of their powers and I can’t imagine what they’ll do next. 

Special Mention:

JPEGmafia – Offline (EP)

This EP was really just the original mixes of tracks he couldn’t get on his LP! album last year due to uncleared samples, and got a ton of play from me.  It was yet another reminder not to sleep on artists singles and EP work as I tend to give weighted favor to full length albums.  But it also gives me an excuse to talk about how monumental seeing him this past October was.  He was so into his music, riding his beats and having a good time along with the crowd.  I’ve been a huge fan of him for years but seeing what he does live was enlightening…like unlocking some mod code to his music and ingraining it into my psyche even more.  I could listen to little else after seeing him for a few months and still spin something from him daily.  Peggy’s music is the closest thing to capturing what the inside of my brain sounds like, while being able to soothe out panic attacks and stress like a magic antidote.  You think you know me, indeed.

Honorable mentions:

Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

Khruanggbin – Ali

Death’s Dynamic Shroud – Darklife

All Them Witches – Baker’s Dozen

Mike Baggetta/Jim Keltner/Mike Watt – Everywhen We Go

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio – Cold as Weiss

Universally Estranged - Dimension of Deviant Clusters

Sedimentum – Suppuration Morphogenesiaque

Tombs – Ex Oblivion (EP)

Blood Incantation – Timewave Zero

Freddie Gibbs – Soul Sold Separately

Jon Spencer and the Hitmakers - Spencer Gets Lit

Dead Cross - II

Bill Frisell /w Gregory Tardy/Jonathan Blake/Gerald Clayton – Four

Plaid – Feorm Falorx