Written by: Oliver Heffron
With most subgenres falling under rock, indie and alternative are experiencing cultural post, post phases, it takes an exceptional performance to create something new and unique while still making music that’s accessible and appealing. With that being said, the projects that have risen to the top this year are each carefully constructed gems with lyrics and themes that strike at pertinent themes, issues, and emotions.
Here are ten rock, indie, and alternative albums that deserve contemplation and defined 2022:
Black Midi – Hellfire
The third album from British band Black Midi, Hellfire, throws their unique post-punk/prog-rock blend into overdrive with a blistering, carefully constructed album with all the thrill, speed, and gritty charm of a classic Hollywood movie. The concept album executes a boundary-pushing, controlled chaos while incorporating fictional, scummy characters into its concept of a wartorn world.
The album’s production reinvents the band’s prog-rock sound with elements of Jazz fusion, post-punk, cabaret, country, and show-tune elements that produce the vibe of a vibrant party in a violent dystopian world. The creative lyrical storytelling, guided by slick characters who present their charm and immorality in animated, old-timey inflections that keep up with the intense, ever-shifting pace.
Highlights include: “Sugar/Tzu,” “Eat Men Eat,” “Welcome to Hell,” and “The Race is About to Begin.”
Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever
Indie singer/songwriter Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, weaves a hazy dream of melancholy on her third album, Sometimes, Forever, opening up her confessional lyricism to darker spaces while embracing new sonic palettes of shoegaze and industrial noise. Allison Working with experimental Daniel Lopatin, better known as Oneohtrix Point Never, Allison shades in her warm, guitar-centered indie sound with vast electronic menace.
Not to be outdone by the production, Allison’s sweet melodies deliver poignant lyrics contemplating a resentful emotional stasis. Executing her most ambitious vision, Soccer Mommy propels her to the peak of the indie rock landscape with Sometimes, Forever.
Highlights include: “Bones,” “Unholy Affliction,” “Shotgun,” and “newdemo.”
Surf Curse – MAGIC HOUR
Reno band and former Nuance Cover Artist Surf Curse presents a dynamic indie-rock sound on their major label debut, MAGIC HOUR. Balancing their lofi, post-punk roots with a dreamy, psychedelic new sound, Surf Curse presents a complete sonic portrait with head-banging garage riffs, milky dream pop melodies, and psychedelic punk grooves.
Recorded at the iconic Electric Lady Studios and produced extensively by Chris Coady, who’s worked with bands like Beach House, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Grizzly bear, the album sees the talented group passionately throw ideas at the wall, and most of it ends up sticking.
Highlights include: “Sugar,” “Lost Honor,” “Self Portrait,” and “No Tomorrows.”
Alex G – God Save The Animals
Alex G indulges his love for animals, autotune, and ultra-fine indie production on his ninth studio album God Save The Animals. Displaying his skill talent for songwriting, the Pennsylvania native makes poignant commentary about humanity through confessional lyrics told through the perspective of animals, leaving behind the shadowy emotions of past projects to create something still ominous yet optimistic and forward-looking.
Utilizing voice manipulation and layering alongside immersive production, Alex G blends hypnotic vocals with saturated riffs, spacey pianos, and experimental percussion. While Alex G’s musicality is always stunning, what makes this project stand out from the rest is the vulnerability of the lyrics, which find compassion as a light against despair by stepping in the paws of our four-legged friends.
Highlights include: “Runner,” “Ain’t It Easy,” “Cross the Sea,” and “Headroom Piano.”
Muna – Muna
Muna’s first album through Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factor Record, the self-titled Muna, presents the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles power pop-rock trio’s glossy, euphoric sound explodes in an infectious celebration. With upbeat rhythms, catchy choruses, and lyrics celebrating queerness, Muna joyously displays their musical talents while presenting an important message of self-love.
Blurring the lines between indie rock and synth-pop, Muna explores glitzy digital textures, vibrant atmospheres, and even some country leanings, presenting a versatile sound that’s hard to define. The lyrics imagine imagery of jubilant self-expression and sexual liberation, adorning the album with the excitement of a musical coming-out party.
Highlights include: “Silk Chiffon” (feat. Phoebe Bridgers), “Home By Now,” “Kind Of Girl,” and “Anything But Me.”
Arlie – BREAK THE CURSE
Nashville indie band and former Nuance Cover Artist Arlie’s long-awaited debut album BREAK THE CURSE is an exuberant synthesis of their lo-fi roots and mainstream potential with its saturated guitar riffs, lofi alt production, and catchy yet compelling songwriting. Pairing pop-friendly melodies with lyrics that centralize a struggle against mental limitations.
Themes of karma, causality, isolation, and a desire for relief paint a compelling illustration of a mental struggle between contradicting the complexity of consciousness and the impulsivity of action. The album balances nostalgic melodies with clever modern songcraft, leading the listener on a digital, psychological adventure through the group’s musical influences and past experiences.
Highlights include: “sickk,” “karma,” “landline,” and “break the curse.”
Florist – Florist
New York indie band Florist presents a sweeping and immersive self-titled album, Florist, letting the listener into the project’s intimate recording process through poetic lyrics, lush instrumental-only folk jams, and behind-the-scenes audio snippet interludes. Recorded entirely on a screened-in porch in the Hudson Valley, the project utilizes half instrument-only tracks and extended behind-the-scenes glimpses to document their extremely collaborative recording process.
Adorned with bittersweet folk-rock textures, sparse lyrical flourishes, and audio documentation of creation within a picturesque place, Florist inspires quiet contemplation within rustic beauty in more than one way. While the self-titled album’s 19 tracks and spontaneous approach does not produce Muna’s most approachable project, it fittingly and beautifully embodies the group’s collective approach to making indie folk music.
Highlights include: “June 9th Nighttime,” “Red Bird Pt. 2 (Morning),” “Spring in Hours,” and “Two Ways.”
Momma – Household Name
Brooklyn-based indie rock duo Momma expresses a nostalgic longing for 90s rock stardom on Household Name through thick guitar riffs, ironic charm, and hooks that will stick in your head. Built around charming lyrical sarcasm about selling out their sound for a mainstream rockstar status that no longer exists, Momma leans into Gen X influences to produce a nostalgic joyride of alternative sounds.
While the nostalgia of Household Name allows Momma to explore the influences the duo grew up on, it also expresses the mastery of their craft as they execute one polished performance of grunge, pop-punk, and alt-rock after the next. Vocal harmonies, slick guitar riffs, and head-banging grooves make for a fun ride that makes the ironic conceit of the album a little less sarcastic, as Household Name checks every box of mainstream rock stardom, just in a different era.
Highlights include: “Speeding 72,” “Medicine,” “Rockstar,” and “No Stage.”
Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems
Philadelphia quartet Soul Glo flexes their hardcore brilliance and radical rhetoric on their impressive fourth LP, Diaspora Problems. From the thick bong rip finishes on the intro, Diaspora Problems kicks the band’s sound into hyperdrive, mixing screamo vocals with blistering rap verses over unrelenting hardcore production.
The music’s intense rage matches lyrics against institutional oppression and racial discrimination, producing a passionate expression of strength through revolution. Socio-political commentary slices through the industrial chaos through imagery depicting societal corruption’s link to psychological affliction on the band’s most ambitious project to date.
Highlights include: “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?),” “Coming Correct is Cheaper,” “Jump!! (Or Get Jumped!!!)((by the future)),” and “The Thangs I Carry” (feat. BEARCAT).
Black Country, New Road – Ants From Up There
UK Post-Punk band Black Country, New Road create a stunningly beautiful depiction of a break-up on their acclaimed second album Ants From Up There. Like the beloved, doomed Concorde jet on the cover, the project expresses emotions of heartbreak at an ethereal altitude, incorporating elements of chamber pop and jazz-folk into their expansive post-punk sound.
With songs extending well past five minutes and two featuring instruments solely, Ants From Up There lingers in deep wells of emotion and beautiful movements that express the mood of a grand funeral march. While the album sees a softening of Black Country, New Road’s sound to something more palatable, the ambitious songwriting and profound lyricism make this album an instant and future classic.