Best Albums Of 2022
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Best Albums Of 2022
We have reached our final year-end list, Best Albums of 2022. If you missed the publication of our “Honourable Mentions” for albums of the year, you can check it out here.
While looking back on the past year to create this list, it’s hard not to notice that a plethora of wonderful albums were released. We thought 2021 was a busy year for quality releases… if last year was busy, then this year was insanity! We cannot remember ever seeing a twelve month span with so many amazing releases, it made picking our favourites extremely difficult. As always, our entire team came together to craft this article and we believe it is the most well rounded list, representing all genres and looking at artists across ALL of Canada.
2022 was a wild ride that just recently culminated with the announcement of the retirement of our founder, Jeff MacCallum. We wish Jeff all the best in the future and can’t wait for the next chapter for Cups N Cakes with Sean Newton at the helm.
(Learn about all the upcoming changes to Cups N Cakes in Episode 198 of our radio show)
Now it’s time to deliver our final hurrah of 2022… our Best Albums of the year list.
Enjoy!
See you in the new year!
#25 - Julianna Riolino
All Blue // You’ve Changed Records
I say with unwavering confidence, one day Julianna will be revered as one of Canada’s most beloved artists, and being a You’ve Changed artist will only expedite the process. She’s emerged with elegance and confidence, stating she’s more than just a member of The Outfit, she’s Julianna Riolino, and she deserves our attention!
- Branton Langley
#24 - OMBIIGIZI
Sewn Back Together // Arts & Crafts
Anishnaabe artists Daniel Monkman (Zoon) and Adam Sturgeon (Status/Non-Status) have both released incredible work this year in their own respective and highly acclaimed solo projects, but their collaborative effort, Sewn Back Together, is a perfect expression of their combined talent for powerful, guitar-driven songwriting that is sonically massive, emotionally moving, and utterly transformative.
- Harman Burns
#23 - Dumb
Pray 4 Tomorrow // Mint Records
Dumb’s third album Pray 4 Tomorrow is a dissaffected look at the state of the world all wrapped up in a crunchy post-punk shell. It’s a great sample of Dumb’s scope: from the frustrated scorcher “Out of Touch” to the lazy lockdown anthem “Strange is the Morning” or the ska-inspired “Dropout”. Dumb has a lot to talk about and enjoy changing their sound to fit the message.
- Alex Brassard
#22 - Sister Ray
Communion // Royal Mountain Records
One of the most honest breakup albums of the year, it's a heartbreaking listen. Sister Ray’s Communion isn’t exclusively about heartache, though its tone is certainly centered around the introspective feelings of something emotionally heavy. While singer Ella Coyes examines the minutiae of breakups, searching for self, heritage and contemplation of true intention, they are often quick to cut the tension with an agile quip or reference. It often feels like a little wink from Coyes as they vent. Sister Ray has been making audiences cry for years and to finally get a debut that is able to capture the presence and emotion of their live set to record is deeply satisfying.
- Kennedy Pawluk
#21 - Isaac Vallentin
Juma // Gatekeepers Of Love
“Sometimes I forget that I’m dreaming when I talk to you. So when I wake, I wonder: were you dreaming too?” The opening lyrics to Juma instantly captivated me. It was more than a curiosity, it was a necessity to unearth who Isaac Vallentin is and what it is we need to hear.
I stated in my initial review of Juma, I believed this was but the beginning for Isaac and I still hold true to that. He allows the music to flow through him, and he hears and thinks on a different artistic and imaginative level.
- Branton Langley
#20 - Raine Hamilton
Brave Land // Self-Released
I called this album a masterpiece when I reviewed it earlier this year and I stand by that. Probably my personal favourite album of 2022, this beautiful tribute to the natural world around us is as diverse as it is elegant.
There is something here for a wide range of musical tastes, from its baroque string arrangements to its more uptempo folky songs. The record is full of heart, reflection and passion.
On top of all this Hamilton shows us amazing musicianship, songwriting and countless acts of humanity… I can’t wait to see what they accomplish next!
- Chris Vasseur
#19 - Destroyer
LABYRINTHITIS // Merge Records
The Cups N Cakes network has been buzzing about the new release LABYRINTHITIS from Vancouver's Destroyer. The new record is an emotionally packed voyage through hazy worlds and brightly coloured universes. Defying limits and getting lost in a consistent rhythm, melody, or emotion. LABYRINTHITIS kicks into gear on the track "Suffer," adding an excellent electronic flavour to the course. Another stand-out song was "Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread"; this song starts aggressively and transitions into this great groove, especially around 1 min. LABYRINTHITIS is a solid addition to an excellent catalogue. For those still humming "State of the Union," don't sleep on this new release.
- Earl D
#18 - Samantha Savage Smith
Fake Nice // Saved By Vinyl
In April of 2022, Calgary pop artist Samantha Savage Smith released her third record, Fake Nice. It’s an album that feels like an explosion of sound and good vibes. It reminds me of the best of 60’s go-go music, but brought up to date with today’s pop sensibilities. Spacey guitars/synths and ethereal vocals mix with a bold and gritty rhythm section to transport you through a full and sonically rich listening experience.
The songs are amazingly produced, and every tune leaves you in a good mood. Smith had a bit of a personal journey in this album’s creation, and it definitely shows; each song feels like it has a deeper meaning woven behind the upbeat pop exterior. It’s definitely not an easy feat to achieve one without sacrificing the other and she has done an expert job of it here.
- Matt Budd
#17 - Ellen Froese
For Each Flower Growing // Victory Pool
It’s high time you’re paying close attention to Ellen Froese, quite probably the best young singer-songwriter making folk music on these Canadian prairies. Froese’s latest LP is a vibrant and warm soundscape of vintage sonic textures, where finger-picked acoustic guitar and pedal steel plays alongside synth and drum machine. It makes for a tasteful and carefully-crafted reimagining of what folk music can be, while still sounding clearly well-informed by the rich musical traditions from which it emerged. With her characteristic lilting voice, Froese sings of contemplations as expansive as the cosmos itself, and as microscopic as one person’s failed attempt at connection with another. Somewhere in between, she finds humour in all the messiness and pain of being a feeling human, and revels in the irony of existing in a boundless and splendorous universe but having no way to escape from yourself: “It’s so sad to be sad that I just had to laugh / My time for sorrow should surely have passed / But I’m blue, all shades of blue, grey and black too, and there’s nothing I can do / No cure and no clue.” This is Froese’s best work to date.
- Julie Maier
#16 - Thus Owls
Who Would Hold You If The Sky Betrayed Us? // Secret City Records
Saxophones spit and swirl with the tradition of the free jazz greats like Pharaoh Sanders, all while pushing the sonic envelope in new and layered directions à la CARM. Wild woodwind free expression is pinned down with classic Canadian indie tendencies that act as perfect millennial nostalgia fodder. More still, guitars cut in and out of psychedelia as the drums push and pull the band – sometimes swirling with contemplation, at others, driving forward with purpose. Amidst it all are Erika Angell’s ruminations on distance, relationships, fragility, and connection. If that weren’t enough, Erika delivers her musings with a blend of melodic spoken word and spellbinding vocal explorations that are as haunting as they are enthralling.
Thus Owls celebrates and revels in the unique styles, influences, and personality of each contributor to a result that is expansive and spellbinding all while remaining grounded and approachable in Who Would Hold You If The Sky Betrayed Us?
- Clay Geddert
#15 - Yves Jarvis
The Zug // Flemish Eye Records
With his fourth album under the name Yves Jarvis, the Montréal-based producer, songwriter, multi-hyphenate mastermind Jean-Sebastien Audet perfected his very own formula of vintage rock music, swirling with psychedelia and infectious melody. Sacrificing none of the free experimentalism of his wildly brilliant previous project Un Blonde, Jarvis has laser-focused his songcraft here into its most condensed form. The songs on The Zug ripple with whimsy and charm, and each offering is dialed just-so, a perfect feast of sounds.
The album is populated by tones that call back to the analog synths and fuzzy riffs of the 60s and 70s, bristling with tape hiss and grit, and full to the brim with soulful harmonies and winding rhythms that duck and weave with remarkable deftness. Each of the fourteen tracks is a beautifully bizarre gem, a curious transmission from a lost airwave that only Yves Jarvis could tap into.
- Harman Burns
#14 - Alvvays
Blue Rev // Polyvinyl Record Co.
Alvvays is fun, quirky, nostalgic, and dancey. This album is a compilation of wild guitar solos and various noise layers to pull your ears in every direction and keep you from settling into one emotion or state of being. I find it impossible to listen to this record without head bopping along while at work or in the car because every track is a tasty, sweet musical treat.
These songs are dynamic and punchy, serving you the exhilarating rush of a live music event without the earplugs, crowds, and beer-covered floors (if that isn’t your thing). There is an urgency stringing each song together that demands your attention, your increased heart rate, and your passionate listening skills. For all 40 minutes, you are immersed in the creative genius of Alvvays and it truly is a party!
- Krystle McGrath
#13 - Tanya Tagaq
Tongues // Six Shooter Records
As a call-to-arms, as a reckoning, as a work of art in totality, Tanya Tagaq’s fifth album Tongues is as devastating as it is timely. The brutality of the electronics, at times austere as the arctic, at times fuming with volcanic force, create the landscape for her singular voice. Tagaq’s performances on this album are unmatched, peerless in intensity and originality. Her voice is by turns breathy and intimate, harsh and terrifying, and her poetry defies mere metaphor, mere mythology.
The language of Tongues transfigures its narrator from mother to wolf, and she beckons the listener to follow her through this shedding of the mortal form, releasing your body, your morals, your self. As the songs shift between these modes— from rage to consolation, warmth to desolation— the catharsis of this shedding is transferred onto the listener. The experience is hair-raising, unforgettable, and it is a rare and powerful thing.
- Harman Burns
#12 - Quinton Barnes
For The Love Of Drugs // Grimalkin
Quinton Barnes delivers a bone-crushing assault of confrontational industrial beats that crackle, crunch, surge, and blast, while Barnes digs equally deep into his tortured psyche to deliver ethereal R&B reveries drenched in personality, surrealism, and struggle with For the Love of Drugs. A dizzying array of surreal, boundary defining experimental production that shouldn’t blend with Barnes’s R&B sensibilities nearly as well as it does. All the while, he remains grounded and self-aware, as evidenced by a tongue-in-cheek skit that pokes fun at the erratic and disjointed nature of Arca style experimental production. Barnes wrangles with surreal and hefty themes of queerness, rage, alcoholism, suicidal ideation, and eroticism. It’s replete with introspective vulnerability, layers of irony, and cathartic debauchery. Thematic heft and mind-numbing production meet to make one of the finest albums this year.
- Clay Geddert
#11 - Motherhood
Winded // Forward Music Group
It is no secret that we here at Cups N Cakes absolutely love Motherhood. We’ve covered them pretty unrelentingly and their previous effort Dear Bongo made the number one spot on our best albums of 2019 list. Motherhood are one of the most creative and fun songwriting collectives in the country. Listening to a Motherhood album is like diving into a pile of musical tricks. Overlapping melodies, beautiful harmonies, genre bending, reprising melodies at different points throughout the album, unique song structures. You can name it and Motherhood has probably thought of it and executed it with a flair of their own. On Winded, Motherhood gather all the finer points from past releases that make them unique and mash it all together to produce an album that represents them best. Even more impressive is Motherhood’s ability to experiment and get weird without losing any accessibility. For a three piece to pack so much into a song is a testament to how much each member contributes, often each singing over one another while even juggling multiple instruments at once. Together it all makes Winded one of the most interesting and enjoyable albums of the year. The fact that it sits at #11 on this list is a testament to the moment Canadian music is having right now and the quality of music in this country.
- Kennedy Pawluk
#10 - Crack Cloud
Tough Baby // Meat Machine
In at #10 for the Cups N’ Cakes best album list for 2022 is the sublimely brash Tough Baby by the Vancouver based collective known as Crack Cloud. This album is certainly one of the most eclectic and hectic Canadian releases over the past couple years. Beautifully recorded and mixed, it brazenly and delicately features the collective's many influences. Peppered throughout Tough Baby are hints of psych, noise, dance, darkwave, jazz, indie, hip-hop and classical as well as their signature post-punk sound that they have developed since their inception. This creates an extremely unique experience that you will only get from Crack Cloud, making them one of the most creative and daring groups currently making music in Canada. Featuring numerous instrumentation, this album never ceases to surprise and never sticks to one particular sound or instrument to accomplish this. Male and Female vocals are stitched together to give very shifting vibes and energy. Edgy lyricism and avant garde production style keep this album fresh and modern and helps it transcend the trappings of being merely 80’s worship and something new altogether. As with all things Crack Cloud, Tough Baby feels huge and self assured yet enigmatic and vulnerable.
- Nigel Young
#9 - Mariel Buckley
Everywhere I Used To Be // Birthday Cake
The self-proclaimed queen of the one-star room is innovating in the alt-country space with her third album, Everywhere I Used To Be. Taking inspiration from the likes of Kate Bush and The War on Drugs, Buckley sought to stray from country norms and go outside her comfort zone. Choosing to work with Montreal producer Marcus Paquin (The Weather Station, Arcade Fire, The National) Buckley wanted someone who would “challenge me with some of my sonic ideas and also to bring that contemporary pop understanding to traditional country”. That decision, much like the choice to add synths to the album, was a gamble but it was done with a deft hand; the synths and pop sensibilities are noticeable but not overpowering. A great example is the album’s second track “Whatever Helps You” which has synth beats but also an overlay featuring pedal steel and Buckley’s storytelling that keeps it rooted in familiar country sounds.
Throughout Everywhere I Used to Be Buckley focuses on the past and her home, sometimes with nostalgic charm, but mostly with regretful angst. Buckley is her most honest on this album, reflecting on her recent struggles with mental illness and addiction as well as being haunted by past heartbreak. Buckley has come a long way from her roots, both literally with touring but also with her growth as a musician, and Everywhere I Used To Be is a great work of self-reflection; you have to accept where you’ve been to know where you’re going.
- Alex Brassard
#8 - Ultra Mega
Panis Angelicus // Self-Released
Coming in at number eight is perhaps the least recognizable name on our list of the Best Albums of 2022 but to gloss over these words and skip to the next spot for an artist you recognize would be a massive mistake. Ultra Mega are a Winnipeg staple that take their time to put out releases. They don’t deliver the goods until they’ve achieved perfection and perfection is exactly what was delivered on Panis Angelicus.
Twangy folk fused with psychedelia and country lay the musical foundation for one of the best lyrical releases of 2022. The album opens with one of our favourite tracks of 2022, “Goodbye Felicia”. Enter the psychedelic Spaghetti Western world of JD Ormond as he narrates in astounding detail the micro minutiae that comes with leaving the house. The song takes you on his journey from back door to back alley garbage can in an astonishingly relatable fashion.
“I’m slipping on a hole in my lawn, I look around to see if anyone seen me”
The track ends as Ormond puts out the trash and exclaims “Goodbye Felicia”, adding a layer of mystery. Is Felicia his cat? Should we be heartbroken? Maybe it’s just a stuffed animal? We never find out as the song ends in a snappy fashion and Ormond shuffles down the alley to explore and reminisce more about his neighbourhood over the next six tracks.
Ormond’s ability to poetically deliver relatable stories of everyday minutiae makes you appreciate those moments in your own life. He makes you see a beauty in the boring. Panis Angelicus is a true gift for those who are willing to take the journey.
- Jeff MacCallum
#7 - Joyful Joyful
Joyful Joyful // idée fixe
In a deeply personal and relatable effort, duo of Cormac Culkeen and Drave Grenon teamed up under the moniker Joyful Joyful and went in search of music that inspires a spiritual experience. Driven in large part by their expulsion from the church for their queerness, Joyful Joyful drew from their religious and spiritual background to create music that is felt more than it is heard.
Like Celtic folk songs from outer space, Culkeen’s vocals dance and swing effortlessly as Grenon follows along intuitively with ambient accompaniment that drones and swoon fervently. Just as the improvisational jazz greats searched for emotion over musical theory, so too does Culkeen approach their vocal method. Not unlike Arooj Aftab, Culkeen’s voice soars and plummets with ease and purpose. They carry their desire for evocative musical experiences over to their method - moving together intuitively, responding to each other’s subtle shifts of mood, tone, and inflection. There is a clear musical rapport, and yet, the music feels like it’s been inside of you all along.
Whether you project these lyrics onto a long Canadian winter, or apply them to the 8th century hermit about which they were written, Joyful Joyful pairs contemplative and entrancing musical proclivities with rich lyricism that will have you returning again and again to experience their surreal peace and ponder the weight behind the meaning of their space age Celtic folk.
- Clay Geddert
#6 - Yoo Doo Right
A Murmur, Boundless to the East // Mothland
Since releasing their debut full-length just last year, Montreal’s Yoo Doo Right have swiftly arisen up and out of the Canadian-music miasma to represent a machinic experimental-rock power – equal parts unfastened anachronistic kraut-rock and hypnotic contemporary post-punk. Released on June 10th, A Murmur, Boundless to the East succeeds that which came before it by simultaneously tightening the proverbial bolts and allowing the hydraulic fluid to run long and free.
From top to bottom the record is a barrage of cascading melodic landscapes, predominantly guitar-bass-percussion meditations, often additionally adorned with percolating synth arpeggios or smoothed with an infinitely wide pad. Vocals are sparse and the result is strict and succinct, with Justin Cober’s repetitious lyrical sentiments remaining cogent in the mind long after listening has ceased.
In some ways A Murmur, Boundless to the East is best surmised as a conscious study in dimensionality and scale. On one hand for the savage magnitude of the record’s sonics – monolithically loud, almost orchestral at times, all culminating in a haze of searing feedback and electronic growl. On the other hand, for its attention to temporality – patiently allowing each song to commence and depart at its own pace. With this, Yoo Doo Right approaches the logical epitome of a certain style. Fundamentally, A Murmur, Boundless to the East feels somehow hallowed, important, like studying the essence of an archaeological object. And while being transfixed by this experience, it is in turn safe to expect that the group’s true full potential is still upcoming, characteristically looming somewhere in the future’s expanse, for which we quietly await.
- Nikolas Barkman
#5 - Sinzere
Tabula Rasa // Self-Released
Sinzere’s Tabula Rasa is an album driven by Black artistry, and activism. It discusses racialized violence and makes multiple references to Harriet Tubman, like in “The Mission,” where Sinzere compares the record to: “an underground tunnel to the motherland.” Or in the tracks intro: “the mission of this album is to free myself which is to free my brothers and sisters.”
Sinzere carries a smooth flow throughout the release with empowering, important, and resonant lyrics. The piano components ring clear, and help to emphasize Sinzere’s rap stylings. The rhyme schemes are intricate, clever, and memorable which brings Tabula Rasa’s oral story of Black activism and justice to life. The songs reflect societal ills, and point out injustice on every front while utilizing multiple sounds and stylings.
Sinzere is not afraid to bring her voice, and many other Black voices and stories along. Tabula Rasa stirs up feelings of clarity, and passion - one cannot help but be moved when they hear lines describing stereotypes like “uncivilized.” The album is one motivated by activist notions with a creative flourish that meshes soft and slow with harsh, yet precisely calculated lyrics. In “Uninspired,” Sinzere addresses racial tensions in tandem with religious metaphor, saying:
“Black angel/ fighting for her life / and the devil out here tryna steal her light.”
On Tabula Rasa, Sinzere’s mission is to celebrate Black history and Black artists. Mission accomplished!
- Kyra MacFarlane
#4 - JayWood
Slingshot // Royal Mountain Records and Captured Tracks
Another year, another JayWood creation on CnC’s “Best Of” list–and how could we not? JayWood’s Slingshot released July 15, 2022 is 45 minutes and 6 seconds of the best music Canada has to offer. Everything about this album is immaculate, pairing dancey beats and catchy lyrics with Jeremy’s iconic guitar grooves. This is also one of those albums where you can just tell the artist is the producer–these production elements aren’t just flourishes added later, but integral parts of the song. Production always matters, but the way Jeremy and team play production like an instrument itself, pushing it to its limits and experimenting while remaining true to the voice and message of the song, it’s pure brilliance.
Slingshot was Jeremy’s opportunity to look back on the past while ultimately being pushed forward. He vulnerably allows listeners to look back with him as he reflects on the passing of his mother in 2019, and thanks her for all she taught him and gave him in the track “Thank You”.
My favourite thing about JayWood? He’s the kind of artist that inspires other artists to keep being artists. We’re proud of him. We’re proud of someone defining their own iconic sound unlike anything we’ve ever heard across Canada. We’re proud to see that hard work pays off, and that busting your ass, making an incredible record, and being a good person does matter. This is the kind of album that restores your faith in the music industry–behind the facade of algorithms and content creators, music wins. Music always wins.
- Lana Winterhalt
#3 - Jairus Sharif
Water & Tools // Telephone Explosion Records
On his monumental album Water & Tools, Calgary-based, self-taught DIY improviser, Jairus Sharif has plunged headlong into the deep waters of unclassifiable outsider jazz, inventing his own language along the way. It's a language of modulated saxophone wails echoing into space, a language of thundering percussion and walls of noise shot through with singing chimes and synthesizers. Beyond these metamorphic sonic qualities though, it is a deeply emotional language first.
There is a cosmic grandeur to the music, and the broad canvas on which Sharif paints, spans decades and worlds. Like photography from the James Webb telescope, there is a mystery to what he captures, but an intense and uncanny clarity as well. The album coalesced in the wake of a painful loss of a family member, and the experience and expression of this grief makes a deep impression on the music. Listening in this way, its dissonant passages read not as heady, overly cerebral athletics, but as a deeply-felt emotional truth, rendering the confusion, the restless upheaval of loss in all its beautifully strained cacophony. This gives way to tremendous moments of consonant power as well: a sudden revelation in the eye of the storm.
Sharif has described creating the album as “lighting a beacon.” Throughout the runtime of Water & Tools, through all its turmoil and transcendence, there is undoubtedly a bright, guiding light at its core, and that is Sharif himself. There is a courage and generosity at the heart of this music, and this burning core is exactly what make this release such a luminous, outstanding achievement.
- Harman Burns
#2 - Eliza Niemi
Staying Mellow Blows // Vain Mina
Staying Mellow Blows is the conversation you are having with a friend over a dinner outing. A gentleman walks in and she quickly pulls you close, motions towards the man, lowers her voice and informs you this is the guy from her song that “talks about music like a high school teacher ruins a beautiful book” (“Not Killing Bad Energy”). You shake your head at the audacity of such a thing, but you both can only smirk at the familiarity of a mundane relationship slowly passing you by once again. The stories are devastating but are delivered in a palatable format so not as to turn you off. This is essentially the foundation of the garrulous relationship between the two of you.
Based in Toronto, Eliza Niemi captures a side of life that is impractically idealistic and frames it with a sound that reflects traditional folk. She does so with the help of uncustomary contributions from a variety of musical donors. The multi-instrumentalist ranges her vocals from airy and whimsical to ‘straight-forward’ conversational speech and back again. Brief poetic interludes push the spoken word agenda overtop of the singer/songwriter label. Tracks like “Sushi California”,“Trust Me”, and “Don’t Think” have the ability to move you into Eliza’s atmosphere, perhaps through the orchestral elements that gently remove us from the folk roots we’d expect. It’s almost an ironic surprise to reach “Leave Me” and find what you may have originally anticipated when approaching this type of album.
Throughout Staying Mellow Blows, we witness some of Eliza’s most humbling and challenging moments. The fact that they are still modest and relatable, like the conversation with a friend over dinner, prove Eliza Niemi is an artist poised to become a household name in Canada.
- Frankie Undseth
#1 - The Sadies
Colder Streams // Dine Alone Records
When singer-guitarist Dallas Good prematurely left this earthly coil in February of 2022, with The Sadies’ 11th album Colder Streams still being prepped for release, the tragic timing of it all meant that there was no way to approach listening without taking it in as Dallas’ swan song. In the “anti-bio” that he penned before his death, Dallas took to the uncomfortable act of self-promotion with the wry humour that he was well-known for, but in so doing ultimately left behind a message that was pretty damn impossible to argue with:
“Colder Streams is, by far, the best record that has ever been made by anyone. Ever.”
Given the penchant that The Sadies have long had for singing about macabre topics around death, the dearly departed, and the supernatural forces that shape mortal life, it becomes hard not to hear many of the lyrics on Colder Streams as words of wisdom from beyond the grave, or soothsaying instructions from Dallas about how the rest of us (and bandmates Travis, Sean, and Mike in particular) are meant to carry on in his absence. One of many such examples happens right in the opening track “Stop and Start,” situating itself as a prologue for the rest of the album to follow: “Let the spirits of the fallen guide you / With every step and measured breath / Far away from the pain inside you / And focus on what you have left.” The monumental loss of Dallas hangs like a specter over this record, and I can’t help but think that if he had known it were to happen in this way, he’d have taken a little bit of grim satisfaction in the bittersweet way that Colder Streams met the world.
The embattled performance skill and idiosyncratic melting pot of musical influences that makes The Sadies unique, and worthy of the “best band” moniker so long affixed to them, are all here – the face-melting guitar chops and blood harmonies of the Brothers Good, the fuzzed-out and colourful cosmic psychedelia, the twangy strings and cinematic Americana drama, the red-hot rhythms and punk rock manic energy. The musical accomplishment of this album is as strong as anything ever placed in The Sadies’ oeuvre, but for for fans who know The Sadies’ live show experience, the pain of realizing Colder Streams can never breathe on stage in exactly the way it was always intended to will stick like a lump in your throat. As the swell builds and fades away in the haunting closing instrumental of “End Credits,” we are left to sit with all that Dallas has left behind. Once again, his words just cannot be argued, and none of us will say it any better: “all that matters is the music itself, right?”
- Julie Maier
Check out our look back at 2022 by visiting our features:
Best Albums of 2022: Honourable Mention