Infinite Spin’s Top 33 & 1/3rd Albums of 2022
By William G.
Infinite Spin Records sets sight on some of the favorite underground rock n roll records that carried through and served as life soundtrack during an interesting year.
1. The Janitors – Noisolation Sessions Vol. 2 (Little Cloud Records, Cardinal Fuzz) Buy Here
Hailing from Sweden and playing a fuzzed out dark psychedelic droned out rock n roll; These lords of the underground bestow onto us yet another thematic soundtrack of the times. You know the times because you’re living in them and Noisloation Vol. 2 tells the tale so you don’t have to.
2. Warm Graves – Ease (Fuzz Club) Buy Here
A beautiful set of dark atmospheres with a vocal delivery that sinks into the post-punk depths which presents a space of relatable unease.
3. Modern Stars – Space Trips For The Masses (Little Cloud Records) Buy Here
There’s a tempo here, a present energy. Perhaps it’s the distant yet permeating female voice-scape from Barbara Margani to which bears a motherly soulfulness along with melancholy on a fair portion of the tracks met with the harrowing delivery of the male lead from Andrea Merolle that slowly rips away the inner fabric of your being like a blood red candle dripping wax from under it’s flickering glow. The album literally sounds like a crossroads, complete with suggestive possibilities. The hair on your arms will momentarily defy gravity.
4. Black Doldrums – Dead Awake (Fuzz Club) Buy Here
A dark gaze into psychedelic post-punk bad-assery that furthers what is basically a nameless genre form and brings to light the present best of the best from the rock n roll underground that moodfully (Sic) beacons under a black light haze.
5. Crows – Beware Believers (Bad Vibrations) Buy Here
Catchy, dark post-punk that is on the attitude side of the coin with an atmospheric noise that pervades. …out of London, England.
6. Tajak – La Sombra Del Agua (Little Cloud Records, Hole Records, Acid Test) Buy Here
A genre defying slow burning mind melter that instantly took over as the band brings together all of their previous work on 1 long player while simultaneously stepping up their game.
7. The Veldt – Entropy Is The Mainline To God (Little Cloud Records) Buy Here
Snap, crackle and poppin’ all the right influences. All the proper harnessing and incorporation from a veteran band that has manifested itself over the moon and back. “Soulgaze.” You read that right.
8. A Place To Bury Strangers – See Through You (DedStrange Records) Buy Here
Experimental Noisey shoegazey post-punk that cuts right through you; A Place to Bury Strangers always melds chaos into some sort of reasonable structured presentation better than anyone in the business.
9. Spiritualized – Everything Was Beautiful (Fat Possum) Buy Here
On album #9, Jason “Spaceman” Pierce channels his inner 1997 while simultaneously progressing the catalog and right in formulaic line with his brand of orchestral, experimental gazed out melodic drug tales. Paradox perhaps, but when you are as over-the-top perfection as Spiritualized is already, there’s nowhere else to go because you’re always at the top …and higher than the fire sliding through Spaceman’s veins.
10. Gunman and The Holy Ghost – The Death Of… (Little Cloud) Buy Here
A dark country-delic americana take that drugs you into an absolute relation. Led by Hákon Aðalsteinsson of The Third Sound, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and formerly of Icelandic underground badasses Singapore Sling, is proven as one of the most important musicians in this underground scene.
11. LOOP – Sonacy (Reactor) Buy Here
Legendary Noise-gaze pioneers return with their second output and first technical full length since 1990 and somehow provided us with an album that didn’t miss a beat despite the 32 year wait. The entire catalog is a must.
12. The Baudelaires – TiLT
(Little Cloud (US) / Cheer Squad (AUS) / Kozmik Artifacts (EU)) Buy Here
A well done reverb(y) psychedelic garage rock out with a fresh take …from Melbourne, Australia
13. Terrapin Gun – Relax Your Mind (Infinite Spin Records) BUY HERE
An album that lends itself to that certain side of bands like the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spacemen 3, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club; You’ll know the era this recording is rooted as soon as you allow the album your attention: The 1990’s.
14. Alien Lizard – Lucid Dream Machine (Self-Released) More Here
Polish dreamy artsy psychedelic rock that can touch a bit of the avant-garde.
15. Las Visiones – Cruces de Neón (Little Cloud) Buy Here
“Cruces de Neón is a post-punk statement wrapped in shoegaze and neo-garage sounds.” “Full of power, it deals with issues such as the questioning of the attempt at spiritual purification at the expense of fanciful deities and intellectual subjugation, the encounter of our animal nature with rationality.” …out of Guadalajara, Mexico.
16. The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees (A* Records) Buy Here
Anton made no bones about what type of album this was to be. No experimentation here, but dependable BJM signature psychedelic rock. Sometimes the prolific artists get whisked away in their own monstrous catalog with the latest releases getting overlooked for cheap copycats. Don’t make that mistake and go for an original.
17. The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors (Partisan Records) Buy Here
Probably their best record in over a decade. …and that’s saying something as the entire catalog, EPs included, is outstanding.
18. Rancho Relaxo – Spirit of Ecstasy (Self-Released) Buy Here
““The Norwegian DIY underground combo, at their 11th LP!, suggests their distinctive personal cure to mitigate the impending doom from the period we’re living coloured by a trippy heady concoction of 60s glittering jingle jangle, 90s shoegaze reverbs and all-rounded atmospheric neo-psychedelia amidst folk, spacey and raga streaks.”” …and the 10 prior records are fantastic as Rancho Relaxo has long proven to be one of the handful of guarantees in modern rock n roll.
19. Menk – II (Little Cloud) Buy Here
“Menk is the psych kraut duo from Saint-Petersburg, Russia which brings the new way of neo-psychedelia combining hazy effected guitars with motoric structured beats and using sampler and live looping” …I’d summarize this record as a great example of ‘psy-gaze,’ which basically just makes concise the Noise/Psychedelic/Shoegaze genres into 1 package.
20. Magic Shoppe – Mono Lake (Little Cloud Records / Cardinal Fuzz) Buy Here
“
“Taking notes from My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth & Loop they have a European Psych Shoegaze sound which flirts with Noise Rock. Warm and fuzzy tonality can washout into soundscapes or crash into a maelstrom. …on Mono Lake the band continue this aural assault, but also revisit some of the sounds on their debut Wonderland LP.”
21. Black Lizard – Heads (Fuzz Club) More Here
Alternative laden good feeling psychedelic rock out of Helsinki, Finland.
22. GOAT – Oh Death (Rocket Recordings) Buy Here
Goat drop their most jarring in your face set of songs on us yet.
23. Tess Parks – and Those That Were Seen Dancing (Fuzz Club) Buy Here
Tess Parks has one of the best female rock n roll voice expressions in history. Now that the obvious has been stated, this record suggests reflective change for the singer combining her hard tale drug drizzled delivery with beautiful hope filled psych tinged song arrangements.
24. The Asteroid No. 4 – Tones of The Sparrow (Club AC30) Buy Here
California psychedelic shoegaze veterans return with a beautifully crafted, sprawling record wearing the 90’s shoegaze influences on their sleeve.
25. Kill Your Boyfriend – Voodoo (Little Cloud) Buy Here
Gazey noisy industrial psychedelic post-punk out of Italy.
26. Dead Rabbits – A Different Place (Fuzz Club) Buy Here
“Dead Rabbits’ fourth studio LP sees them return with their own brand of heavy-hitting psychedelic rock. From soft velvet sounds to the raw and explosive, electronic undertones supplement a wall of guitars.” …superb release after a 6 year hiatus.
27. Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys – Teen Tapes (For Performing Your Own Stunts)
(Unique Records) Buy Here
Soul piercing ethereal atmospheric psychedelic dream pop that hovers like a dark cloud, which is exactly what we need.
28. BYSTS – Palace (Little Cloud) Buy Here
A sexy, dark dreamy shoegaze slice on the post-punk side of the dice.
29. Abraxas – Monte Carlo (Suicide Squeeze) Buy Here
Lee Blackwell of the Night Beats plus Carolina Faruolo formerly of Los Bitchos with some inspired psychedelic cumbia. Why not a fun?
30. Holy Springs – E.A.T. (Up In Her Room Records) Buy Here
Fuzzed out psychedelic shoegaze out of London (UK) that sees the band continue to further their lo-fi sound. There’s a lot going under this hood
31. Ecstatic Vision – Elusive Mojo (Heavy Psych Sounds) Buy Here
On the Iggy and the Stooges side of Hawkwind influenced (in your) face melters. Mojo galore that will resonate with you bad sum-bitches out there.
32. Ghost Woman – Ghost Woman (Full Time Hobby) Buy Here
A fun American western styled reverberation that throws back to what was once best about the likes of a Mystic Braves or a Golden Animals during the height of the resurgence of the Cali-sun drenched psychedelic garage scene here in the US, but with one caveat. Ghost Woman is from Western Canada.
33. Slow Dawn – Into The Machine Haus (Cardinal Fuzz / Centripetal Force) More Here
Play the vinyl at 45 RPM and you get a fuzzed out noisy jaunt. Play it at 33 RPM and get you a gothic brooding post-punk HAUNT. Now that’s a good time! Come stand on guard for thee.
1/3rd. EP of the year: Acid Rooster – Refractions (Stop.Look.Listen. Records) More Here
A postcard shaped ep that offers more surprises when you download the app. …Psychedelic Krautrock outfit that keeps pushing the genre’s envelope.
The best label in the US is, also, the best record label in the world in 2022. If the Little Cloud name is attached, it’s going to be stellar in the realms of boundary pushing, cutting edge contemporary rock n roll.
