2022 was a great year for music. So when I started looking into my favorites I quickly found I had more than 22 albums I really liked this year. So in the spirit of the losers flight from the Dutch Olympic Comittee during the Rio Olympics I gathered all losers in a row (not flight). Don''t think you don't need to check these albums out, they made my year better as well. Just...
So before passing some categories with good albums I did buy, first the ones I missed all together. I still don't do spotify as a man of principle. So some albums I never heard. Main reason my hopping between Holland and Portugal. Some albums were released shortly before I would be away for a month. The low this year I had when albums I ordered took so long in the mail, that I was not home to receieve and since you have to pay bloody taxes as high as the CD price at times they were returned to sender. So on first thinking the ones I missed so far are by: Queensryche, Riot City, Arena, MSG, Pattern Seeking Animals, Cosmograf and Martyr. Martyr have this habit of playing nearby when I am not around. For 2023 they already announced a festival at Musicon during PPE. So without me, and no Vinnie at PPE. But you can run, you can not hide as I will see Planet Metalhead in January in Baroeg when they open for Jag Panzer. The albums I did get, enjoyed but not making it to my list are the following.
Bands that released a good album but not their best ever:
Zero Hour, Oceans of Slumber, Giant, Soilwork, Wilderun and Porcupine Tree. All released albums in teh range decent to very good, but their problem is that they set their own stadard ridiculoudsly high in the past. So from change of style (Oceans of Slumber) to surprise comeback (Giant, Zero Hour) and even somewhat disappointing given their past (Wilderun, Porcupine Tree) these all were good enough albums, but not shocking me like my top 22 would.
In the progrock genre Stuckfish was very good again, Big Big Train I did not get due to the sad loss and Galahad was returned to sender. The best news came from Dec Burke, but Darwin's Radio is expected in 2023 now (I hope)
On the progmetal front I liked the Vass/Katsionis album a lot. Kandia made me tick the box of female vocalist (live at Comendatio very good) and Compass the melodic variant. All very nice albums to check out.
On the edge of Melodic and heavy metal I liked Edge of Forever a lot, especially after seeing them live. Ironflame was one of the True metal highlights this year to me and Spirits of Fire is my number 23 of 2022. Until this afternoon I tried to swap them with one of my top 22. The only failure on this masterpiece by Fabio Lione, Chris Caffery, Steve DiGiorgio and Mark Zonder is that it would be even strong if lasting only some 45 minutes with eight songs. Highly recommended still
On the other genres I loved the albums releases by Eight Bells (classy doom with female vocals), Sacred Son (my favorite Black Metal album is again from the UK, cover of the year for me) and instrumental Spaniards Toundra with Hex (pity I missed their show at DB's).
So if these are the losers, wait for the winners tomorrow. As I said 2022 was a good year for music, if you like it heavy or proggy that is. The rest was as poor as a worldcup in Qatar.
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