Indiecast - The Most Overlooked Albums Of 2022

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Now that Indiecast has decided the most annoying music Twitter story and the most 2022 album of 2022, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen get (a bit) more earnest about their favorite music of the year. This week's Indiecast episode as Steve and Ian name the five albums they think deserved more media attention in 2022 (hint: one of them had an entire Indiecast episode dedicated to it).This week's episode also includes a brief TVcast segment where Steve and Ian share their thoughts on The White Lotus' near-ubiquitous internet takeover (:25) and the state of prestige TV in general. Plus, Indiecast answers a mailbag question about year-end music lists (11:52).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 119 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to IndyCast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we discuss our favorite overlooked albums of 2022. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. I wonder how he feels about Portia from the White Lotus, whoever that is. Ian Cohen.

Ian, how are you? We're coming off strong with some White Lotus talk. Actually, I think you'd be more of a Jack character. Jack is, of course, Porsche's British love interest on the White Lotus, and he talks like he learned how to speak English from the first Streets album. I think you, I'm surprised like you don't like White Lotus, just strictly based on this guy. So, okay, you spoiled it here a little bit what I want,

because I want to pivot to TV cast briefly here at the top of the show. we're going to put indie cast aside. We're going to TV cast now because I have to just get something off my chest about the White Lotus. And I feel like a total crank here because I am apparently one of the only people on Earth who finds this show to be super bland and unfunny

and just really not that exceptional unless you just like want to see good-looking actors on vacation. I mean, that seems to be, from what I can tell, the primary appeal of the show. Now, I like Mike White. I think he's talented. I just think this show is really bland and unfunny and everything else I just said. I don't need to repeat it.

I watched the first season of the show, and I really just found it annoying. And the only person who agreed with me on that is my wife. My wife, I think, dislikes it more than I. do, which is why we're married, I guess, because we're just both haters, I guess. But I wanted to get your take on this because I feel like this show, and look, obviously people find it appealing. I mean, to me, you know, I'm the guy on the outside looking in. Like, all of us find ourselves in this position at some point, like where it seems like everyone likes something and you don't, and it's a very lonely feeling, and you have a very cynical point of view on why people like it,

which is not accurate, but nevertheless you believe it. Like for me, people talk about the White Lotus because there needs to be an HBO prestige show that people talk about at some moment in time, and this just happens to be the show that came along at this juncture. So, like, people love their memes, they love their little references to their little prestige show.

And that's what the whole thing. White Lotus is to me. Now I know that's a cynical point of view and it's not true. So tell me, okay, in this brief episode of TV cast, like, what is the deal with this show? I cannot stand the show. I'm sick of hearing about this show. I'm sick about hearing about this show. Hey, Ian, why don't you talk about it? Well, look, I value your opinion. Okay. And this is TV. This is TV cast, so we need to, you know, have content. It's also our last show of the year. by the way.

So I won't be talking to you for a few weeks after this. What's the deal, man? What's the deal with this? Well, first off, I just want to, I'm sure listeners seized upon that last line that I won't be talking to you until the next Indycast records. We're like late period Grizzly Bear where we just get in the studio, we hash it out, and then we just like completely go our separate ways. Well, we DM.

We DM a lot. We're texting. But we're not talking. You know, you are the only person, really, during the course of a week that I'll, like, we're not talking over the phone. But this is sort of like a phone call. Yes. I don't talk to anyone over the phone. So, you know, so you have a special place in my life, Ian, here for actual conversation.

But anyway, for the TV cast listener, what's the deal with this show? Yeah, look what you made us do year-end list time. we got to talk about TV. You know, I, there's a part of me that, like, was going to, I felt like I was going to go on that, like, hater track after the first episode, because I thought, like, the first season had got over its skis a little bit. Like, it was a show that really played to,

I've heard it criticize as like a show where every single line of dialogue is intended to be screen capped. And I think the first season had that because it dealt with so much, it was dealt with so much. much stuff that people talk about on like media Twitter at all times in a kind of a way succession does to a less extent. But I think that this one, you're right. It's rich people on vacation, extremely attractive.

You can enjoy that for what it's worth. But I also think that this show, I think that the themes of this season were more within its grasp, like largely about like masculinity and the power, politics of sex and so forth. It didn't try to encompass so many themes like the first. season did. And I don't know. I found it to be like quite enjoyable because it wasn't as preachy or pedantic as like a lot of shows or movies tend to be about the way they view the world.

Like nor was it a kind of cynical, everyone sucks like hate watch these people sort of thing. Like I never really got a sense that these characters were being used as like this barely veiled vessel to experience. to express the way people see the world. And I think that was even true of Porsche as well. Like I, this character to me is indicative of how disconnected I feel from the greater Twitter discussion ever since like the ownership change of Twitter is basically rendered my

timeline like completely unusable. Like I see more tweets from like random like random music writers than you these days, Steve. I'm like, wait a minute. didn't follow this person, but like it's suggested tweets. And I think with Portia, this, I like this character only because, like, I never can tell whether people, like, are supposed to hate this person or relate to them or, like, hate this person because they relate to them. I think there's, like, a really unflattering character type that is showing up in a lot

of media these days, like, for example, Ava on hacks. Yeah, yeah. It's like the person in the entertainment business. who is like a neurotic millennial. They're juggling. They're zoomers. They're zoomers. It's like the TV is awful right now.

TV sucks. So bad. I hate TV. Because it's all of these like it's like they figured out how to make like a shitty show in the form of a prestige show. You know, so it has all the trappings of prestige TV. But like it's totally. empty. You know, like, I think there's so few, like, actual, like, good prestige TV shows now. I feel like it's all just gruel in the shape of a prestige TV show. That's why it's good that

we talk about indie rock on the show normally. Because I think this is a great year for music. And we're going to talk about some albums that we think are really good that didn't make a lot of you're endless. We just want to give them a bit of a bounce on the show. I think that you're, I think that I here's what I would recommend for you. If like you're totally burnt out on TV, one of the things that we've gotten into in the Cohen household as almost a direct response to like looking at Metacritic and seeing these highly rated TV shows and like just being bored, bored to them, just completely bored by them, married at first sight. I think that you will,

It's sort of like White Lotus in that, like, you just get to watch people be, like, totally, like, out of their mind, bad shit crazy. But they kind of look a little more average than most dating shows. And also you get, like, the bumper music, which is just like this, these incredibly cynical, like, synth pop songs that describe exactly what just happened or what will happen. See, this sounds terrible. This sounds terrible to me. I know how this sounds, but what you're saying is, is that you like this show because. it's not even aspiring to look like a prestige show. It's garbage

that just is like, which I can see being refreshing. Because the sort of air of like, oh, aren't we clever that pervades so much TV now is just insufferable. Because it is not most shows just are not,

what's the last show you wanted to watch past the first season? There's not that many. Usually if you even make it at the end of the season, you're like, okay, I'm good. you know married married at first sight is like i think up to season 15 but there you go one of the one of the points i think is worth making

uh that i've learned this year as i've gotten more into books and tv is that as much as we clown um you know a lot of music criticism for maybe overrating albums or like you know genuflecting the power i found myself just flabbergasted at how just flat out wrong a lot of music or a lot of TV reviews and a lot of book reviews are. Like, I think the discrepancy between, like, the quote-unquote critically acclaimed stuff and, like, how much I actually enjoy it is so much more pronounced.

Like, I think with music, I can try, like, yeah, this is probably pretty good. I'll, like, read a highly recommended book, and I just can't believe I spent $29 on this. Yeah, I think a lot of TV writing to me, it feels like we've got to keep this going. So this is the new TV show. Let's maybe overpraise it a little bit. And again, that's a very cynical point of view, which I'm sure is not true. But again, having just tried so many TV shows that were praised that I thought were awful, I can't not have that thought go across my mind.

I have to say in terms of the popular arts, TV dead last right now. Movies like a little bit above TV, but movies are not in a good place either. music number one and look that's me being a homer maybe but I think music by far number one

even with all the things that we could say bad about it so maybe we should pivot out of TV cast now let's go back to indie cast talk about music do you I mean am I being a homer with that one I think music is number one

film a distant second TV dead last Actually, I think we got to put sports at the top. Yeah, sports number one. Sports number one. Yeah, you're right. Sports number one, music number two. I think we're in the right business.

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. Yay, music. Good job music. If you leave 2022 with any takeaway, it's that A, music exists, and B, music's pretty tight sometimes. Exactly. Good job, music. We love you.

Let's get to our mailbag segment here, because we have a lot to get to here. We spent a lot of time on White Lotus. That's my fault. I had to get that off my chest. You can't tweet about that. I've wanted to tweet about White Lotus, but I'm like, I'm just going to get murdered. This is a very pro-white Lotus environment. So this is a safe space, though, for me to be a crank about prestige television.

Thank you all for writing us. It's great to hear from our listeners. Please write us because we're going to have to probably do some heavy mailbag segments in January. because we're not going to have a whole lot to talk about when we get back in 2023. So please write us some letters. Indicastmailbag at gmail.com. Ian,

you want to read this letter? I do. So this comes to us from your friend, Grandma Sophia, which is the name of a website. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, she's kind of weaseling in a free plug here. But that's okay. We'll forgive her.

This is a good letter. Yeah. So I will, Steve and Ian. I hope life is treating you both well. It is. I wanted to reach out about why publications insist on releasing their year-end lists at the end of November slash beginning of December instead of in January. There are always several good albums released at the end of the year. The publications are forced to throw on the following year's list.

Two albums that should have topped 2020 lists, I Don't Hate You and Whole Lot of Red are coming to mind. Wow. We'll get to that. That's a Playboy Cardi and Ogbert the nerd reference. first. Wow, really Yeah, yeah.

Really sucking up to Ian right here. Not a burner account. Well, I'd not just make January the month for nostalgia out for the previous year. And then we can start

trying to listening new stuff in earnest in February. I know that these publications are rushing for clicks and the earlier the list is out the more readers, or so the logic goes.

But I really do think that if everyone agreed to push these lists to even like the last week of December, not only would they better represent the year, but just as many people,

if not more, Nuzzle up and read through while we're covering from the holidays and watching the college football bowl games. Okay, so we got bowl games, Ogbert the Nerd, and Playboy Cardi. What do you think? Is there any hope we can push for a mass move to January or are there issues with January retrospective list that I'm not thinking of? Grandma Sophia releases her album of the year list in January like a sane person. Well, Grandma Sophia, why not drop in a Simpsons Giff there? Just to complete the Ian Cohen suck up.

a collection of signifiers there. Okay, so you hear this complaint every year. Not from everybody, but there's always like a vocal minority of people who say, why are you releasing your year-end list before the end of the year? And I should say, by the way, I put up my personal year-end list in the first week of December. Did you post a list anywhere, Ian? Got you. Nope.

And I probably won't, not because of any sort of like, I don't know. know moral things. It's just I just have not fucking got around to it. I mean, I'm guessing. Which kind of shows where I'm at in my, you know, my state as a music writer. Because like I, every time around this time of year, like there are Facebook, you know, on this day memory posts where I like put like a list of 50 albums, all of which have like the label in parentheses. And like this was only as recent as like five years ago. That is so declined. Sometimes or like a hundred song playlist. I don't do that anymore. more. It's a lot of effort, man.

So I'm guessing your number one is Black Country New Road, right? Is that your number? Probably. I would say I put Wild Pink at number one. Okay. It's like it's Wild Pink or Black Country New Road. I was going to say Wild Pink number two, either like one and two, those two up there. Yeah. And is it like a distant third after that?

Probably. Like usually that's like the spot that the, the, 1975 holds down whenever they release an album, but not this year. I don't, man, I can't even remember. Like, I'm like not being, it's probably soul glow. That's probably it. Okay. Yeah.

1975, by the way, getting a lot of love on your end this, I've noticed. Very interesting. So, yeah, we have this issue. People, there's a minority of people that complain about this, about, you haven't even let the year finish off yet. you're doing these year-end lists, and there have been examples of big albums that came out, sort of after a lot of the list came out. She mentioned a couple.

I would say the one that comes to mind for me in the modern era is Black Messiah, the DeAngelo record. Is that the definitive, like, missed the year-endless album? I mean, I guess the Beyonce record? Yeah, that's definitely one. Didn't, like, London Calling come out, like, on? December 12th of that year. Like, I remember seeing something about that.

Well, that ended up on, that was Rolling Stone's number one album of the 80s. That came out December 14th, 1979. Yeah, it's a weird, that's like the most egregious example of a publication saying, well, you know, our year ends

early. So we're actually going to like grandfather this record into the 80s because it came out in late 79. I'm trying to remember what number two was on their list. For the 80s? Yeah, if it was like thriller. Purple Rain or Thriller.

I think it was Purple Rain. Joshua Tree. I think it was Purple Rain. So Purple Rain maybe is the rightful number one. The thing about this, okay, let's entertain Grandma Sophia's fantasy here that like all the music publications of the world join hands. And they decide we're going to publish our list on January. first or the second or like that first week of January. I can kind of see her rationale here that like January is a dead zone and that it would

be fun to turn that dead zone into a time where people just like look back on the previous year and they shared all their favorite albums and it would give us something to talk about at that time of the year. The problem with that is that it ignores the rest of the world. Like it's not just music publications that put out their rest. retrospectives in December. It's everybody does that. Film does that. TV does that. Political websites do that. Sports websites do that. So you really are not just talking about music websites. You're talking about the entire world. You have to convince the world that when the calendar

flips over into a new year, that it's still worthwhile to look at the previous year. And that's not going to happen. I feel like people when they get to the new year, year, it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to stop drinking. I'm going to stop eating terrible food. You know, I'm going to be a better person now. Like, they want to look ahead. They don't want to look back. So I just think it goes against human nature, even if we are violating the calendar by doing year-endless before the end of the year. I just think it's human nature to look forward when a new year starts and not backwards. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And, And, you know, maybe in the past I would like agree with that back in the days when I, you know, thought like year end lists that were something that had like much greater cultural value.

But if we're, if we're going to throw a Simpsons reference in, which we need to, I just think of like Lisa Simpson's saying, how could you soil the good name of Star Blitz promotions? Like it's it's sort of like when like pop punk like fans like are mad at machine gun Kelly for like appropriating their sound. It's like you have to like we're talking about like the. integrity of year-end lists, which are just like, they're not like these things that are, you know, monuments that will stand the test of time. More likely than not, like, the staff that voted on that year-end list will turn over by half if that publication even exists by the next year. And, look, I think you nailed it in that when, when the calendar turns to January, like,

the last thing I want to do is think about the previous year. Like December, I mean, as we've alluded to, many of the last. a time on this episode already. Slow times. I want to take the last month of 2022 to rediscover stuff I had missed over the previous year. You know, there's not much going on. I'm still interested in thinking about 2022 as like a block of time that has a narrative. And so this is a time for me to, you know, watch college bowl games and listen to a bunch of records that I may have missed over the previous year. But nonetheless, I think we cannot bury the lead here,

which is that this is a person who thinks Ogbert the Nerd's classic debut album is on the same level as Playboy Cardi's whole lot of red, which might be like the most influential rap album of the past three years. I got to check out this website. Yeah, you got served there at Grandma Sophia by Ian just now. That's right. Yeah, you know, I have to say too. people use clicks as a slur, you know, against websites.

Like, you're just trying to get clicks by posting your website early. Let me tell you something. Clicks put clothes on the back of my children. It fills their stomachs with food, these clicks. Clicks are important to us in the media salt mines. And it is a fact that if you run your year-end list in early, December, more people look at it than if you run it in late December. It's just true. People get fatigued with lists. They get inundated with this stuff. And at some point, they're just not

going to read it anymore. So if the public wants these lists to run later, don't click on lists that run in early December. Don't click on those. And then websites will eventually realize that there isn't an audience for this, and they will post it later in the month. But that's not going to happen because people are going to click on the first list they see, even if it runs in October. Like if we're at a point in like 2030, we're doing year-end lists. Well, I mean, now we're doing like mid-year lists. That's like a convention now. Yes.

And I do that. I love them. I do mid-year lists. There's people doing like best albums of the year. Yeah, quarterly list. They're doing like best albums of the year so far like in August. So it's like a three-quarters of the year list. and they get clicks every time.

And every time there's a click, one of my kids, they get a cheeseburger on their plate or whatever it is. They get to eat. So, you know, I'm happy for that. But yeah, if you don't like it, don't click on it. That is the way to solve that problem if you see it as a problem. Yeah, the kids get cheeseburgers, but only because it's December. Come January, they're going to be getting a turkey burger with a kale side set. out.

Enjoy it while you can, Steve's kids. Yeah, they're going to be getting the Fire Festival platter in January. It's going to be that. It's going to be like in a, you know, styrofoam container. It's going to be like one piece of bread and a piece of cheese and that's it.

So yeah, eat up kids while you can while the clicks are plentiful here in December. Let's get to the meat of our episode. And that is, of course. Speaking of Fire Fest meals. Yes. We're talking about our favorite overlooked albums of the year. And let's explain this to our listeners, Ian.

We're basically talking about records that we like a lot that we're not really seeing on year-end list right now. It seems like you see a lot of the usual suspects, especially at the top of the list. But there's a lot of good records that just fall by the wayside. We want to give them a little extra bump here. in this episode. They may appear on Grandma Sophia's list because that's not out yet,

but we're just kind of going off what these lemmings who put their year-end list out on December 1st and no later have done so far. Yeah, and look, you can't cover everything. We understand. No shots at anyone, but these, again, we think these are worthwhile records that deserve extra consideration. So we each picked five.

And so we have 10 records overall here. We have a lot to get through. So, Ian, why don't you talk about your first overlooked gem of 2022? Yeah, there's nothing people love here more on Indycast than when we get into, like, you know, critical semantics. And this one I picked to lead off Kara Kara and new preoccupations gets us into the conversation of like what it really means to be underrated. I do the air quotes right there. Look, we love cymblesy guitars, wild pink. bands that, you know, get called overrated or called underrated by like the same dozen people

who like rave about the same album every time they drop. And so it begs the question of like whether an album like this is underrated or like actually overlooked or underappreciated. And I think that this album really slots into that category. You know, most people I know who have given this album a chance and it was pretty highly anticipated in a small niche. It was five years in the making. They had a kind of a hit single in 2019 with Better. People who like this album or people who have encountered this album find it to be pretty compelling. It's emotionally devastating. It's about largely sobriety and spirituality.

And I think one of the reasons it's like doing well on individual lists as opposed to, you know, collective staff lists is that it's a record that sounds like a lot of other things. and that can be good or bad depending on, like, you know, the perspective. Like, my wife heard Nocturnalia, one of the slower songs in this album and compared it to Hill song. I heard another person who I trust compared to Hubastank. Other times I've heard like Jim Blossoms or Jimmy Eat World. And I think this kind of speaks to how this record reminds us. I think it's fair to say us of that CVS rock sort of subgenre where songs like, you know, of Goo Goo Doll's slide and tonics if you could only see,

some better than Ezra songs. Like songs that we really love that are like so much darker underneath their slick alt rock surface. Like you hear this song like when you're shopping in the yogurt aisle at Rouse and it turns out it's about like abortion or suicide or something along those lines. And you know, with this one, I have to go shout to Will Yip. He's kind of hit or miss as a producer. I generally love the guys, but this is like one of his best production jobs in a very long time.

I think this is going to be an album who's, I don't know, I think it'll, the people who like this album will continue to stump for it throughout 2023. And I get why it's not, you know, I get why we're talking about on this one rather than, you know, like, you're endless in general. But I just have to give a shot because this is definitely top five for me. Yeah, I'm a fan of this record, too, and I think you did a good job of contextualizing the appeal of this record, which is that shiny late 90s post-Nirvana version of alt rock, where, like you say, it's very catchy and those songs got on the radio, but if you dig beneath the slick exterior, you do find a lot of darkness, and that combination of darkness and light is always like a really good formula. I feel like this is going to be a theme on this list that this record basically is just like a really well-crafted guitar pop record. And I feel like those records often don't end up on like institutional list because it's easy to look at them and say, well, what does this say about 2022? Or what is the narrative of this record? And there really isn't one.

You know, it's just like a really good record. And if you are trying to make a point about the year, This isn't really the record you go for. But I think because it's not the record you go for in the short term, it feels like a record that in the long term is going to age really well. And I would expect that to be true of this album. Really good choice. So my first choice as an overlooked record in 2022

is actually a record that made my year-end list. It was at number 15 on my list, which, by the way, if you want to see my favorite albums of the year, just go to uprocks.com. You can still check that out. There's a lot of good records on there. But this album in particular is called Angel in Real Time. It's by Gang of Youths, another indie cast mascot band,

a group that we stumped for on this show against what sometimes seems like critical indifference. And you talked about this record recently on Twitter, and I thought you made a good point where you basically said that this record is more like the latest Kendrick Lamar record than a national record. in terms of what it does thematically and just like the scale of the music. Like this is an album that I don't think is perfect, but it's not perfect because it attempts to do many, many things.

And it's an album that I would say, and I don't even know if this is a criticism, but I think this is an album that you could say has too many ideas. And because there's so many ideas on this record, not all of them come to full fruition, but I would also say that that abundance of ideas on this record is part of what makes it so appealing. I mean, basically what Gang of Use is attempting to do on this album is make like a widescreen rock record in the mold of like an octoon baby. And merge that with like a dance music sensibility that also has a lot of world music influences.

And then use that music to forward of, a very personal narrative about identity and family and overcoming, you know, just the weight of a previous generation sins, if you will. That's a lot, you know, to tackle on a record. And it's a record that I think is particularly ill-suited to the way people listen to music now,

like, where you listen to something once on Spotify, and then you give it like a hot or not type verdict. Like, this is a record that I think should have come out in like 1993 on compact disc and where you could buy it at Sam Goody. And maybe it's like the one record you own for the month. And you're just able to get lost in it. And you have time to appreciate everything that's trying to do. And including the things that maybe don't fully get pulled off on the record. And again, you know, similar to what you're saying about Caracara.

I love those kind of albums. I love albums where it just gives you a lot to sink your teeth into. And I just hope that people give this record the attention it deserves. Because, again, even the flaws on this record, I think, are pretty interesting. And even when this record doesn't succeed, it still offers you more than what you get from a lot of records that you're going to hear this year. So, yeah, please give this record a chance. It's a really good record. Angel in Real Time by gang abuse.

I want to hear this album on CD. Like I think you're correct in that the sound like the kind of electronic rock hybrid of it and also the fact it's like 67 minutes and like you know, too many. I think also we talk about sequencing. My least favorite song by far is the first one. So I think that might get to it. But yeah, I want to like have this on CD. Like I want to take this on a Greyhound bus ride to visit my brother.

at Penn State in 1996. I can burn it for you on CD because I have the CD. Oh, fuck. Or maybe I'll just order for you and I'll send it to you as a Christmas gift. It is a great CD album. Yeah. Definitely. And I put it on in the car.

It just sounds fantastic. Yeah. I do think that this, you know, maybe stretches the definition of overlooked because, you know, I see it. They're a very popular band. But nonetheless, it's like, I feel like one of the themes of full on publication, year-end list is that really, really popular acts who made, like, flawed albums that didn't maybe get, like, the most sterling reviews throughout the year end up on the year-end list.

Like Kendrick, Mitzky is another example of that. And Gang of Yuse, like, really should be on there as much as either of them. But it's a, look, they make us, they make music that reminds people at you, too. So, you can see why people might not be as amenable to their flawed masterpiece as some others. Yeah, but it deserves to be on there for sure. We're in agreement on that. What's your next choice? So, again, really deep into the music nerd weeds. Sometimes, if you're part of the remembering some guys and gals lifestyle, something called CMJ Corps is really going to strike home. It's that sort of like 8.3 best new music from like 2009. type sound like Fang Island ponytail just like day glow catchy art rock probably from Brooklyn and I love this sound when it's done well it's barely ever done it all but Gorilla Toss did that

this year with famously alive this album unlike the ones we've mentioned thus far it's very compact it's a very easy listen even though it's also like the Car Car album about sobriety and overcoming like a life-threatening illness But it does so in a very celebratory way. I mean, if any of the bands that I've mentioned so far in this little blurb mean anything to you, you're going to like this. And, you know, Gorilla Toss is a band that, like, I was aware of their existence before, but like they, you know, would always be on a different label with each album. I thought they were maybe like noise rock or like a jam band or electronic. But this album really brings it all together with just really catchy, uptempo.

like synthesizer quasi noisy, like, you know, glitter paint type indie pop, which again, you hear this, you might think, oh, this reminds me of my day's drinking sparks in 2009. Hey, that's as glowing of an advertisement as I can possibly give. I check to see if, you know, like what the critical take on this album was. And it's very rare where all music guide is like not into a record. that happened with this one, they said it reminded them too much of emo. I'm like, oh, that's why I like this one more than their previous one. That's an odd observation.

I don't get that at all from this album. You know, I am in support of this choice as well, similar to the Kara Kara record. This is an album that I liked a lot. Didn't make my year-end list, but I really enjoyed it. And, you know, coming at it from the jam angle, because you mentioned they've been described in jam band ways. and they have some of those tendencies. I will say that this record does, at times, remind me of like a more Brooklyn version

of like the King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard albums that came out this year, where it's really funky, danceable rock music that has a big bottom end. And even when it is dealing with those heavy themes that you alluded to, it's like a fun record.

There is like a party vibe to a degree with this record that I think, is pretty infectious and is definitely worth getting into you if you happen to have missed this album in 2022. My next record is not a party record, really, but it's a really good album. It's called Love the Stranger, and it's by a band from Philadelphia called Friendship. And what I'll say about this album is, I feel, and this is true in my mind anyway, that there's some similarity between this record and the M.J. Lenderman,

record both songs that came out in 2022 that ended up at the top of my year-end list. I would say that the friendship record, what it shares with M.J. Lenderman is like that David Berman DNA. Like both of those acts have really dug into like the Silver Jews discography and learned the sort of tragic comic aspect of David Berman's lyrics where it can be funny and sad at the same time. With friendship, there is, I think, more of an emphasis on the country rock aspect. A lot of these songs are like mid-tempo, if not mid-tempo, like even slower than mid-tempo. But again, I think it's the kind of record that is really ingratiating over the course of time.

Really good songwriting, really good vibe. and it's the kind of record that you can enjoy superficially as just like a fun back porch type country rock record but also I think lyrically there's a lot to offer beyond just like the comfort food of that kind of record. You reviewed this for Pitchfork, right? I did and you know I gave it a 7.0 I believe and you know I also don't have a back porch

those things aren't as abundant in Southern California the same with like garages and basements. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, if we're talking about like how architecture, like literally dancing about architecture and it's in the music critical sphere right here, we can talk about like how that influences, you know, my view of certain chugel adjacent albums in the same way that I feel like, you know, music critics in New York shouldn't, you know, probably shouldn't review albums that like need to be listened to in a car.

Right. Exactly. Yeah, at a car or like on a pontoon boat. That's why, you know, like, that's why, you know, it's hard to appreciate maybe a lot of like really slick modern country music unless you have access to a pontoon boat. Because once you get on the water, that music makes way more sense. All right. So, Ian, what's next on your list? Gotcha. So I'm going to be very much on brand right here and talk a little bit about emo. We are doing the pontoon to basement transition, as we often do in Recommendation Corner, but we're doing it right in the middle of the episode. So it's been kind of a, I don't want to say a tough year for emo in general. Like, I think I'm projecting my own experience onto this because, you know, through whether it's a lack of time on my hand or, you know, just not getting pitches accepted, haven't written about emo very much this year. And I will have a year end list of my favorite

emo albums coming out in the not too distant future. But, It's kind of hard to think of a number one because even stuff like anxious and pool kids that you see sprinkled, you know, on some more emo friendly year-end list. Nothing's really like stood out as like a number one like home run. This has changed the sound of emo. But one that I think is a real contender for my favorite emo album of the year is Ben Quad. That's all there is. I'm scared. That's all there is.

and I think this is a sort of record that has really been stunted by the fact it just hasn't been written about. It, you know, bands like Anxious and Pool Kids. They have a history. They have, you know, PR. They have momentum going into this record. But with something like this, if you don't like, this usually takes a couple weeks for buzz to build. And by that time, the window is passed. But, you know, Ben Quod, I've talked about them on this podcast before.

And I've talked about them on Twitter. you know there's always got to be one emo album per year where it's just like 25 minutes and no more and it's just bangers all the way through I think that you know unfortunately there hasn't been anything since the last dog leg album that really has filled that void of just high energy killer musicianship great hooks great production I think that's really underestimated in this realm and Ben Quad, I mean, like, it doesn't, it doesn't pack a narrative. It doesn't have a concept to it in the way like a lot of great emo records do. But this one just hits the pedal from the first minute. Does a lot of really awesome tapping lifts, a lot of great screaming.

25 minutes at the gym, like you're fucking golden with this record. I'm really excited to hear where they go next, especially since this is seen to catch on amongst people. who, you know, tend to give emo their time. Plus, Oklahoma City, you know, Bartiz, chat pile, Ben Quad, Oklahoma City, is it the next Seattle? Let's find out in 2023. That would be cool. I'd like to see Oklahoma City get some shine. Maybe you could also incorporate Tulsa into there as well.

I don't know how close Tulsa is to Oklahoma City, but Tulsa has a great musical history. And it would be nice to see that get some love in 2023 and beyond. My next record is an album that was actually in my top five on my year-end list. I think it is one of the very best albums of the year. I'm a little surprised that this record hasn't shown up on more year-end list because I feel like it checks the boxes for a lot of what critics would like. And it just makes me think that maybe people haven't really heard it yet. But it's called Teethmarks, and it's by a Kentucky singer-songwriter named S. G. Goodman.

and, you know, I hate the term Americana. I just think that's such a corny name for a genre when we're really talking about like folk music or country music or even like rock music, really. I mean, those are the things that get grouped under Americana. But if we are going to take that seriously as a genre, this is the best Americana record that I heard in 2022. and it has a lot to do with the storytelling on this record, which, you know, S.G. Goodman, you know, she lives in Kentucky.

She's writing a lot about small town life. And she's not soft peddling, like, the darkness of small town life in America in 2022. Like how this is really a part of America that has been ignored. A lot of these towns are dying. You know, you've got the opioid crisis still raging. A lot of, you know, sort of mental illness raging in these communities. And she really writes about, I think, that world in a way that's evocative and sympathetic and also isn't just like a miserableist type record. Like this record isn't like a downer when you listen to it. It's really beautiful. And it also, I think, rocks surprisingly hard.

Like you were the first person to say Chugel. in this episode. So you broke the Chugel seal for this installment of Indycast. But this album, when it rocks, there's a song on this record called Work Until I Die that

outchugles any song I heard in 2022. It really has that kind of working class CCR, really hot rhythm section, slashing guitar, and a really pointed lyrical sentiment in it.

So I think just the combination of like beauty and also like genuine kind of like rock and roll on this album, I really love it a lot. And it seems like an album that people haven't heard it that they will discover hopefully in 2023 and it will become one of the albums that people really remember from this year because I think it deserves to have that status.

So again, it's called Keith Marks and it's by S.G. Goodman. I also want to point out that S.G. Goodman is an incredible chugel name. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you were to say, hey, I want to show you this artist from Kentucky named S.G. Goodman and a song, work until I die. You know, just imagine what that might sound like. People will get like these blueshammer visions in their head. Well, but blues hammer is the corny thing. This is like the real shit. And yeah, I wonder if she ever goes by Gibson S.G. Goodman. That'd be a pretty

Epiphone SG. You know, real, you got to go with Epiphone SG if you're going to do the real working person's thing. But, yeah, I'm surprised that this album hasn't showed up on, you know, more year end list. I get the feeling like NPR should be all over this one. And I don't say that as like, you know, a slag on NPR. But like you said, it checks a lot of boxes as far as like, you know, Americana, for lack of a better term, I think that's just how people think about music in the same way that you shouldn't say like,

world music for like to encompass like everything outside of America. But that's just how people think about music. So I get the feeling that the next record that this person puts out is going to be very much like a year end list candidate right off the top. What's your next album, Ian? So I'm going to a little bit of a left turn here. So Sam Precop and John McIntyre put out a record this year called Sons of. Now, if these names are familiar to you, like, you're probably over the age of 40. But if not, these are people who've been around forever.

You know, I like Tortoise. I like a lot of the albums that John McIntyre produces. You know, I get them confused with Jim O'Rourke a lot. But just generally speaking, I think of, you know, their main gigs like Sea and Cake and tortoise and so forth as these are like the kind of. of older brother figures who would like mock you for listening to like cap and jazz and like American football in like the late 90s. So, you know, I've tried to get into that stuff, but, you know, it's always held me at a distance because naturally this post-rock style of music is very

intellectual, cerebral, not meant to be hard on sleeve. And so, you know, I saw this get like a little blip of critical acclaim. And, you know, I feel like the last thing I would need is like two people this nature making like an analog synthesizer improv album and yet like when I actually gave this a shot I was really shocked about how much I enjoyed this. I think a lot I wanted to leave a space for one electronic record in this episode and I found a lot of the ones that have made the year-end lists to be kind of willfully difficult or intellectually fun to discuss but like hard to listen to. This one has been like a go-to driving, writing, cooking music choice, which is not say it's lightweight, but it's very melodic, it's very warm and fun, which is really hard to

say about like an analog synthesizer record. But this one's just been welcoming and accessible and replayable in a way I find that like a lot of electronic records to get praised don't tend to be. And so I think if you're, I don't know, the type of person who isn't, is like electronic adjacent, but like not really well versed in the world of like being able to tell the difference between one ambient record and like the critically acclaimed ambient record and the one that's like not critically acclaimed. I think you'll enjoy this one because it is, it does have a lot of qualities of the records we've discussed so far. Um, but it's, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, is one of my favorite surprises of the year. All right. Well,

my next record is an album that I feel like has been really under the radar, maybe the most under the radar album out of the five that I picked. But it's been an album that I really enjoyed. It's been in a way like my, you know, sort of de facto listen to this album if I can't think of anything else to listen to. And it's called The Late Great Gold Dust, and it's by a band named Gold Dust from Massachusetts. It's basically a project for a singer-strongwriter. named Stephen Pierce.

And on this record, he's working in a style that has become sort of common in like the past year or so, like where you have a band that is taking folky music and combining it with like heavy shoegaze guitars. That's something that you could use to describe the band Wednesday, for instance. There was a band called Knife Play that came out this year that got a lot of buzz. I feel like you could use that to distinguish.

describe the band Greek Death, which I know is one of your favorites from Michigan, they have elements of that in their sound. The thing that I think sets gold dust apart from a lot of those other bands is that those bands tend to lean pretty hard on like heavy riffs, like almost like sort of like a grungy 90s type sound. Whereas with gold dust, there's sort of like a stargazing quality to this record where there's those guitar. that are, you know, being added to like these kind of fokey melodies, but it really is about projecting more of like a gentle type vibe, almost to the point where it feels like a dream pop record to a degree. And I'm going to use, I mean, we talked about overused critical adjectives

in our Indy Cassie's episode. I'm going to use an overused word, but I think it applies to this record, which is sparkling. This is a very sparkling type record. And I don't know if you said this, because I know you got into this record, too, that there's almost like a twinkly emo vibe maybe to this album a little bit. I don't know. But again, this is an album that I just think is really beautiful. I think there's a lot of songs on the record. Again, it's not so much about heavy riffs or volume. It really is kind of focused on just the melodies and the songs going on. And I think Pierce is a really good songwriter. And this is an album that I think deserves more attention.

So again, it's called the late great gold dust and it's by gold dust. Check it out. I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah, I'm a fan of this record. And, you know, for the Twinkly Emo aspect, I mean, this is an artist who comes from like Boston hardcore, like, DIY scene. And one of the most boring things I've experienced over the past couple of years is, like, hardcore people getting into shoegaze.

And I think the country element, or at least the rootsier, element of this album makes it stand out. It reminds me of a lot of like Mojave 3. Oh, yeah. Instead of slow dive. It also reminds me of this album, like an Indycast Hall of Fame candidate called The Brother Kite

waiting for the time to be right. It's like the, it's a similar album from like 2006. But yeah, I'm not surprised it hasn't got in a lot of traction because, I mean, look, this is your endless time. We got to, you know, you got to get what you got to do what

That's the clicks, baby. But I think that this might be a record that people discover throughout 2023 and their next project will hopefully get more attention. Yeah, I think people that like shop on band camp, for instance, because I think this record got recommended. So like when I was talking about it on Twitter, I was surprised by how many people knew about this album already. So I think in like in the band camp community of like people who shopped there,

this record is getting some buzz. I think Aquarium Drunkert wrote about it. So like there's some of that too. But yeah, it's definitely an album that's ripe for discovery. And I think a lot of people would would dig it if they gave it a chance. All right. So I'll close things out here with, um, I don't with my final choice. And I had a lot of trouble trying to think of like one album to put into this slot because

there's so much I want to, you know, there's so much about 2022. I want to, you know, fit into this last episode. But, um, you know, when I think about like, some of the concurrent themes that have gone on this year. One of them, and again, this is a personal year-end list. I don't want this to be seen as a extrapolation of like everything else that's gone on. It's that I would sometimes listen to rock records, you know, things that would be in my wheelhouse, you know, like kind of that emo adjacent sort of anthemic sound.

And just it would do nothing for me to the point where I'm like, man, do I even like rock music anymore? Is it me? Is that what's going on right now? And I want to include an album that kind of counterbalance that, where it's like, oh, yeah, wait, I still love this kind of sound. And it's a band called Spielberg's. The record's called Vesley.

They're Norwegian. It probably gets pronounced differently, but whatever. I'm going phonetically. And this also encompasses the trend I've experienced just as a rock. writer of like albums that I covered in like say 2019, you know, when they put out the follow up a couple years later, there's like nowhere near as much coverage for this one as the first one. And I have no idea why that's, why that happens to be the case. But there was like a good bit of momentum around their first album, which came out in 2019 because they had this like, you know,

like chat pile, Bartis Strange or like pre-cancellation beach slang type narrative of, you know, these guys were indie rock veterans and then they just got together late in their 30s and said fuck it and made a real like ripper rock album that people uh you know that connected with people this one the one that came out this year it's so much better than the one in 2019 and has gotten so much less attention um and which is really a bummer because um i think there is a appetite for the quote unquote Celebration Rock Sound. I mean, God knows Japan droids aren't doing that right now. I don't want to say they're not a band anymore,

but they canceled the one show they were supposed to play, so I can assume that they're probably not in the lab, putting together LP4. But, you know, the production is great on this record. It's a good, you know, it's melodic. There's a craft to it that escapes a lot of bands who, you know, hear Pup once and decide that's what they're going to do. And I think that like this record, the reason I find myself like coming back to it and will come back to it in 2023.

And I think this is true of every record that we've mentioned thus far is that because it's being ignored or just like overlooked or not included on year endless, it doesn't have like any sort of baggage to it of like, you know, you and you think of like the way an announcement discussed in the public sphere. I can just throw it on because, hey, I want to listen to a rock record that's uptempo and has good melodies and, you know, has this emotional undercurrent about like, what the fuck are we going to do with our lives. So, you know, this album I find much easier to revisit than an album I put much higher on my year-end list because it reflects, you know, where the culture is in 2022. So my last choice is an album. I'm shocked that this hasn't been on more year-end list because I really think it's one of the best albums of the year. Like, why doesn't anyone like this record? And it's always blue rev. Just kidding.

Just kidding. I was going to make a joke like that with like, hey, let me tell you about this scrappy duo from the UK that needs to get a little more attention. Their name is wet leg. Yeah. Always blue rev. I think that is the, I feel like I've seen that in every single list this year. Yeah. Like, no matter who was making it.

always blue rev is at the top and look it was on my list it made my top five it's a great record but i just wanted to do a little psych out there um no my actual choice here is a record of from a canadian band called kiwi junior the album is called chopper and i want to circle back to where we started in this episode where you were talking about the cara caro record and like how that's just like a really good guitar pop record and like that's just like a really good guitar pop record. And it's not necessarily an album that you're going to point to and say, this defines the year, or I'm learning something about the psyche of culture by listening to this record. The kinds of albums that end up on lists. And this album isn't like that. It is, again,

just a really well-crafted guitar pop record with like irreverent lyrics and really good melodies. And that's it. And you can enjoy it on that level. And you're not going to be able to think piece about it. And from a critical perspective, I think that causes an album like this to get a little underappreciated, but from a just listener perspective, I think this record, in this band in general, just seems like a band that, like, I wonder if they're more popular than I know. I don't know. I don't hear Kiwi Jr. come up a lot, but when I was putting up my own year-end list, some people brought this album up as something that should have been on my list. It didn't make my top 15.

If I would have made like a top 25 or 30, I think this would have been on it. And they're just making this kind of indie rock now that feels a little homeless to me. Like they get likened to the Parquet courts. Like they've been called the Canadian Parquet courts. And because of that, they also get compared to pavement. So there's that thing going on. that sort of pavement parquet courts type thing where like if Parquet Courts makes an album

they'll probably make a year-end list but like if a band is in the same lane as Parquet Courts, Parquet Courts owns that spot in the year-end list. Like no other band is allowed to get that. I would say about Kiwi Jr. That they do have more of like a mid-2000s indie rock element to them.

Like when we talked about this album in Recommendation Corner, I forget what that was, like maybe this summer, I talked about the stills logic will only break your heart. I think because I was trying to get you to listen to this album. It worked. It totally worked. If it is compared to that, you'll listen to this record.

But that's sort of like melodic post-strokes type rock where a lot of those bands, I think, have been forgotten a little bit, but here on Indycast. Not by Indycast. Yeah, we need to do like a Nuggets type album for that era so we can honor the stills. and Long Wave and French kicks, I mean. French kicks, yeah, all those bands. Holy shit. Like, we definitely have an episode for the Fallow January and or July month.

Yeah, I think so. Although I feel like we've done that episode. How have we not done that episode yet? If we haven't, we'll do it in January or February. But I feel like there's some of that element in here as well. Because I don't really, you know, if you're going to compare it to Parquet course, for instance, I don't really think of them, Kiwi Jr. is like a post-punk band.

They don't really have that kind of energy. It's a little more laid back, a little more irreverent or snarky. And for that, I think it just makes it a cozier. Listen. So this record, and I think all the Kiwi Jr. records, they're all worth checking out if you haven't gotten into this band. I feel like the typical IndyCats listener would be into this band.

I kind of wonder, too, you know, if this band, if they just did an interview, like where they talked about Joyce Manor, They said, hey, we listen to Joyce Manor as teenagers where they could be honorary branded as an emo band. Because they're not in any particular scene. Like when you're in the emo scene, you kind of benefit from people who love emo or if you're in the pop punk scene, you benefit from like the pop punk people who just want to love a record of that ilk in a particular year. And like, this was sort of a down year for emo, I feel like. So like, I don't know.

Maybe these guys, they just need to like name check. Joyce Manor interview or say like oh I love the wonder years the greatest generation you know in some stereo gum interview and you can get some of that like emo scene love I think that would help them but anyway this is a really good record

please check it out it's called chopper by Kiwi Jr. Yeah there was one song that like really reminded me of changes are no good which you know I can't I can't give a higher endorsement but I think you are alluding to something very real where certain bands that are, you know, maybe in like the sub-pop or merge or Matador realm

that aren't able to really transcend their comparisons, like, you know, to Parquet courts or whatever, if you like kind of just pivot enough to emo, that can like really refresh the fan base because I've seen, you know, bands like Mets and Cloud Nothings do that to a degree, not actively, but you know, you'll see a Cloud Nothing's tour with cursive because, you know, say what you will about like, you know, the emo fan base, but they're just desperate for rock music. So I think that this sort of record could indeed, even if it isn't like straight up emo, it could find it. It could find a place.

I feel, you know, since this is our last episode, we have to work at Maddie Healy reference in here. I feel like he's the master of that where, All he has to do is like mention an artist in interview and people will start hearing that artist in his songs. And it's almost like that's a way to get grandfathered in to certain genres. Even if you aren't strictly that, you know, like that's such a clever maneuver that they're the masters of, I think. Just this morning on Maddie Healey's Instagram, he posted screencaps of both American football for sure. and always Belinda says, which was the pitchfork song of the year.

So Maddie Healy, man, one of us. Yeah. Well, on that note, on gratuitously referencing Maddie Healy, that's probably a good... How else could we end our final episode of 2022 without like mentioning the 1975? Exactly, exactly.

And now, you know, a quarter of our listeners have thrown their phones out the window, never to be seen again until 2023 when we come back with more episodes. So happy holidays everyone. Thanks for listening to us in 2022. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends

next year. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix tape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.