ninehertz Top 50 Albums of 2022

Mon 19th December 2022

/incoming/maresofpod.jpg It's album of the year time, and the job of compiling this list through revisiting what we featured and what my listening platforms tell me, really brought out the fact that this has been another special year for our music.

In 2022 we recorded 42 new release podcasts, playing and discussing 378 songs on them. Through bandcamp notifications, tip offs and promos sent to our email account, we must collectively listen to anywhere between 20-50 releases per one song chosen. It's relentless, but the fact we struggle over which songs to leave out - rather than to find enough material each week - is testament to an amazing year of music, and an always growing, evolving, vibrant extreme metal global underground.

Indeed, while we specifically try and focus on unknown, new bands and demos over established names on our weekly output, to give whatever extra exposure we can, the same restriction doesn't apply for the end of year. Yet despite that, this list is still loaded with new and lesser known bands, because even in a straight fight these were the releases that provided the excitement, the innovation, the unpolished passion and raw extremity.

Here is Mike and Pete's combined top 50, in alphabetical order:

Amon Acid - Cosmogony

Ancient Rats - Demo

Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture

Basalt Shrine - From Fiery Tongues

Black Wound - Wither

Body Void - Burn the Homes of Those Who Seek to Control Our Bodies

Bongtower - Oscillator II

Chapel Floods - Chapel Floods

Circle of Sighs - Alabaster

Cloud Rat - Threshold

Colour Haze - Sacred