Thematically, much of this year’s best punk and hardcore music addressed mental health and working through the past while striving for a more peaceful present.
Chat Pile’s new album does not offer catharsis; it is just an unflinching account of the violence we inflict on each other on an individual and global scale.
The best new artists of 2022 are pushing boundaries as popular music becomes less genre-focused. They are forging new identities and moving music forward.
This has proved a fantastic year for extreme music and metal, and the new wave is masterfully progressing. These are the best metal albums of 2022.
In the best heavy metal of July, Ashenspire’s weaponized avant-garde black metal thrills while Chat Pile relish reality with noise, sludge, and no wave applications.
Chat Pile’s full-length debut God’s Country is a grim yet thrilling soundtrack to American decline, drawing on heavy traditions from nu-metal to slasher films.
