Favorite Albums of July 2022
In which three albums make a convincing bid for AOTY and I write a full length review
It took me a long time to write this. July was, undoubtedly, the best month of music this year to date. We received no fewer than three AOTY contenders in this month, one of which supplanted my existing pick with startling ease. It’s a longer one than usual for that very reason, so I recommend viewing this one in the browser view so you can read the whole thing.
METAL ALBUMS
Chat Pile - God’s Country
During my trip to Los Angeles I saw a trash can burning by a homeless encampment. As the fire department hosed down the trash can and all the tents around it, I fought between the instinct to leave and the urge to record it on my phone. In the moment, it made sense — “see uncommon occurrence, capture it, spread it.” Contemplating it now, it’s obviously voyeurism. The same instinct causes us to leer out of car windows at fatal accidents; a dramatic event experienced vicariously evokes thrill and gratitude in equal measure. But what if it were our belongings being waterlogged, or our car upside down in a ditch? Chat Pile, more than any other band, pulls you into worlds like this; and then drowns you in the tragedy.
Having first become acquainted with Chat Pile from their song “Rainbow Meat,” whose chorus repeats “send my body to Arby’s, human flesh slider combo” it took me a minute to really recognize what they were doing. Luckily, if I thought that Chat Pile was just out here to make dark jokes over guitars constructed out of concrete, “Dallas Beltway '' dissuaded me of that notion. Three years later, Chat Pile is clearly more “Dallas Beltway” than “Rainbow Meat.” They are better for it.
God’s Country, the debut record from Chat Pile, is an instant classic. It is the album of the year. It is not an album that you have to sit with and peel apart. God’s Country is a freight train to your orbital bone. Chat Pile has dressed themselves in sweat, gristle and viscera, and they refuse to give you a moment to look away.
And why should they? It’s clear what God’s Country alleges. But if all Chat Pile did was plainly state how America has failed everyone within its borders, they would be fairly lumped in with the countless bands that have done, and will do, the same. What sets Chat Pile apart is the way they tell these stories, and the way they force you to listen.
When I think of this band, I think of them like a talented actor. Each song they slip into a new skin and faithfully, painstakingly live in that character, even when the character in question is a nightmare. This approach drags us out of the remove we are often allowed when listening to music, and it turns us into accomplices. These performances are further warped with the addition of pained screams and agonized howls. Vocalist Raygun Busch pushes the boundaries so far with his voice that he encroaches on the rare territory of people like Chip King of The Body, and Alan Vega of Suicide (particularly his chilling performance in Frankie Teardrop) who turn their voices into instruments of torture by shattering the boundaries of singing.
This stunning vocal approach, when combined with the instrumentation, turns each song into a torture chamber. Many have described the guitars as sounding like they’re built from concrete, and it’s an apt descriptor. The drums ring out like a shotgun in a warehouse, and those concrete guitars rattle and clack in a way that would make Korn seem tame. It feels like something you should be running away from, not listening to. Even without the lyrics, the music itself evokes a physical reaction. During certain songs I felt unwell. My heart rate changed, my breathing quickened; God’s Country convincingly tapped into something primal and it wasn’t by mistake.
Finally, we have to consider the lyrics for this record. They deserve a Pulitzer but won’t get one. Chat Pile pummels the concept of homelessness to death with simple, urgent questions in “Why.” They place you in the heart of a mass shooting during “Anywhere” and will damn near turn you vegan with the blood curdling “Slaughterhouse.” These stories and songs are brought to life by Raygun Busch’s uncanny ability to convincingly inhabit the mindset of their distorted subjects. You feel like you’re there, witnessing something you never should have seen, something you can never forget.
This is not a normal album. It drags you kicking and screaming into its rotten, filth-stained arms and smothers you. Whether you like it or not, you will remember where you were and how you felt when you first heard this album. Perhaps more chilling, you’re already in the world of God’s Country, and Chat Pile will never let you forget it.
Conjurer - Páthos
There is a particular glee in a massive undertaking executed with the utmost competence. Páthos is very much deserving of that glee. Like many bands that operate in the post-metal space, Conjurer employs a lot of moving parts. Massive changes in tonality, tempo and intensity paint themselves across the project with unrepentant glee. Throughout it all, there remains a steady hand at the wheel. The project never gets too cute or too technical for a casual listener to enjoy, and the brutality of tracks like “Those Years, Condemned” among others, are immediately appealing to hardcore metalheads. It may sound like I’m damning a good record with faint praise but what Conjurer is doing here takes a lot of effort and creativity, even if it isn’t a groundbreaking record. Funnily enough, it seems apt to compare Páthos to Top Gun: Maverick, both give the audience exactly what they want to see, and if that were as easy as it sounds, we’d have a lot more Top Gun: Maverick’s and Páthos’ than we do.
Scarcity - Aveilut
One day, a long, long time ago, a metalhead heard a post-rock band and asked “what if I could make that louder?” Whoever did that didn’t form Scarcity (presumably) but if we ever find out the name of the guy who first slammed together post-rock and atmospheric metal, the folks in Scarcity owe them a drink. While Scarcity is hardly the first band to take the constant, soaring build of post-rock and welcome it to the metal world, they are one of the most effective and maximalist versions of the concept. It almost feels disingenuous that there are tracks on this album, it’s more a single big roar, not unlike the also excellent Solar Drone Ceremony by Neptunian Maximalism, who are also masters of this format. That said, constructing a record that is functionally one big song that doesn’t change a whole ton is a feat in and of itself. That Aveilut remains emotionally and sonically engaging for the whole time is a triumph worth celebrating.
Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture
We really got to go on a tear of political metal in July didn’t we? Between the obliteration of America by Chat Pile to the working class rally cry of Stick to Your Guns we were already more than sated. Of course, as with any working class metal movement, the UK had to show up to the party sooner or later, and this time they kicked down the fucking door. Hostile Architecture is an unrelenting, Boschian journey down through the circles of hell. The blend of black metal guitars and jazzy saxophone creates an inescapable tornado that is as thrilling as it is terrifying. Ultimately, it’s more post-metal or some other avant garde take on the genre, but what it does that sets it apart from other boundary pushers is the vocals. Typically, black metal lets vocalists sit in the back of the bus, their wails more an instrument than a delivery vehicle for ideas. Ashenspire situates their vocalist front and center, his Glaswegian accent raw and ripping through the monsoon of guitars with perfect clarity. And what a perfect choice when you’re serving up treatesies like “The violence is here | Modern Blackshirts in the streets | What good is civility in the face of a kerb full of teeth?” Rarely is a record so satisfying in every category, and while this isn’t the buzziest metal record with “something to say about society” there’s a reasonable argument that it should be.
Honorable Mentions
NON-METAL ALBUMS
Beyoncé - RENAISSANCE
Look, I know that no one needs my take on a Beyoncé album. There are countless critics who have already canonized this record, innumerable think pieces about its place in her discography and rabid fans who will spin nothing but this record for months to come. As you might expect, I’m here to agree with them. On this album, Beyoncé does what she always has, which is make pop music with greater skill than anyone else trying. She has better collaborators, better taste, better vocals, better production and better sequencing than all of her contemporaries. The pivot into dance music is a delightful change of pace that has previously been pulled off by legends like Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that Beyoncé belongs in that pantheon. I admittedly don’t know enough about all the styles of dance music being explored on this record, but I can tell she’s nailing it. At this point, Beyoncé stands alone at the top of a mountain, few, if any, other artists have enjoyed this kind of longevity alongside a near-unanimous (deserved) critical consensus. We’re in the realm of watching Bob Gibson pitch or Barry Sanders run, all we can do is observe in awe and thank god we’re on the earth to witness it.
black midi - Hellfire
It’s not supposed to be this easy, and even if it’s difficult beneath the surface, it’s not supposed to look this easy. To really get a sense of how absurd of an achievement Hellfire (and by extension, black midi’s discography) is, we need to zoom out and look at what they’re doing. From a 5000 foot view, we can watch black midi marry gnarled concept album storytelling with some of the most technically demanding, free-jazz inspired instrumentation being played today. Strangely, my heart wants to compare them to Rush. While Rush was always a more buttoned up band than black midi, they were never short of ambition. There’s a reason why people regard each member of Rush as one of the most talented players of their respective instruments, even if those making the observation harbor no love for prog rock. I fully expect we will reach that point with black midi, provided they can scrape together a long career.
But back to Hellfire. This album would be a masterpiece on its own. It mashes together cohesive storytelling with the literal sound of chaos. We rarely get instrumentation this batshit outside of math rock or the most technical genres of metal. And yet, we are regularly provided breaks and lounges in the form of tracks like “Still.” But this didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened hardly more than a year after Cavalcade, which already cemented Black Midi as one of the most important bands making music. That this album equals or betters Cavalcade in almost every regard is absurd. Something magical is happening with this band, and it doesn’t seem fated to end any time soon.
Momma - Household Name
My appreciation for Household Name comes largely from nostalgia. But just because something is a nostalgia play doesn’t mean that it’s artless. Sure, Household Name largely deals with the frustrating relationships of youth, and does so in a black eyeliner sort of sound palette that wouldn’t have been out of place when I was in Freshman year of high school. That said, I know what music sounded like back then, so I can tell when something is a pale commercial imitation (hi Machine Gun Kelly) versus an actual appreciation for a sound. If you’re my age, and want some comfort food that’s more than just empty calories, you’d be hard pressed to do better than run to Momma’s arms.
Moor Mother - Jazz Codes
Moor Mother’s music rarely summons the word “soothing” as a descriptor. Often crunching, aggressive and apocalyptic, Moor Mother refuses to shy away from heady topics, dark lyrical alleyways and furious deliveries. While her music often invites a certain level of intensity, Moor Mother is not a one trick pony. If you were waiting for her to “do something different” before adding her to your personal Mount Rushmore of underground rappers, then Jazz Codes is the project you didn’t know you needed. Largely free of the searing noise of her previous projects, Jazz Codes highlights the poetic heft of Moor Mother’s lyrics and the raw force of her delivery with museum glass clarity. The often soothing jazz instrumentals are a dreamy miasma that parts only when Moor Mother’s voice slices through, carving a blank space in the mist. And in typical Moor Mother fashion, this project is more than jazz. It’s spoken word poetry, dream-rap, free improv and DnB. As far as I can tell, there is no limit to Moor Mother’s capabilities, and this is a fantastic introduction to her abilities for anyone who is timid around industrial sound fields.
Viagra Boys - Cave World
It’s a shame that this newsletter is coming out later than it should, because I’m no longer the person breaking the news to you that Cave World is one of the year’s standout records. Before digging into the meat of the record’s themes, I have to extend my kudos to the instrumentation. Composed of a wild blend of horns, electronics and standard rock band instruments, it’s a punkier version of what bands like Black Country, New Road and black midi offer. Each track revels in its bombast, and tempers the insanity with unimpeachable grooviness that practically summons your feet to whatever zany dance floor Viagra Boys lay out at their shows. Now, that alone would have put this album squarely on the list for July, but it rockets into the stratosphere on the strength of its themes and lyrics. Unlike many records that attempt to comment on modern politics, Cave World is never preachy, nor does its satire fall short of reality. Instead, they frame their pathetic subjects in a funk-laden funhouse that feels like something out of Tim and Eric Awesome Show. By leaning into the wackiness of their vocals and instruments, they make harrowing topics like an office shooter feel small and pathetic. And if that weren’t enough to paint the emperor without clothes, it’s paired with rare insults about the evolution timeline of these people. Each track on this record is an absolute joy, they all drip with a unique rainbow-colored venom that makes them irresistible, even to the targets of its derision.
Beabadoobee - Beatopia
A friend and I were discussing if the recent reappraisal and popularity of pop-punk was a forward evolution in the genre or just a commercial redeployment of well-trodden sounds. Ultimately, we concluded that the integration of pop-punk into real pop was an evolution in and of itself, and represented the genre breaking out of a cage and bleeding into the post-genre landscape. Whatever the state of pop punk songwriting, Beabadoobee will become part of its legacy. On its face, Beatopia may strike you as standard acoustic pop-rock. Even if it were just that, it would still be a sterling example of the form, however, it’s a whole lot more. Beabadoobee uses Beatopia to hone the songwriting prowess that has earned her billions of listens on Spotify. The resulting experiment finds a way to blend the indie pop that was so beloved in the 2000s, with pop-punk and modern acoustic sounds. It’s an addicting, well-considered blend that worms into your ear and deserves all the accolades it’s destined to acquire.
Honorable Mentions