The year turned out such that I had to think about music not as often as I was used to doing before. But this doesn't mean there wasn't any. We'll remember this year for what it was and thanks to music as well. Each year gets its own soundtrack.

It's interesting to note that if last year 9 out of 10 albums were in Russian, here the bigger half is already foreign. Perhaps in this way I tried to detach from the narrative that 3 Russian-language records transmit in this list.

By tradition about those who didn't make it into my top, but whose albums are also an integral part of this soundtrack: Komsomolsk, Placebo, kis-kis, Architects, Dora, Ermak!, Polyphia, RAM and KOMMO, Rammstein, Kuok, thirteen carats, well and maestro Stromae. This year phonk reached my life, I listened most to Russian LXST CENTURY and Ukrainian VISXGE, whose super-popularity on streaming I couldn't imagine before.

Albums

10. The Devil Wears Prada - Color Decay

I would call TDWP one of the brightest bands from the second tier of metalcore for the last fifteen years. You know, such bands that you don't really value and don't include so consciously, don't remember many songs, but looking back you realize that you listened to all their albums and some tracks are even rotating in favorites. On Color Decay they managed to get even closer to me. Literally from a few listens it became clear that I'll return to this release more than once. Exemplary metalcore according to genre patterns with a pinch of hitness on top.

9. I Prevail - True Power

But I Prevail managed to refresh the genre so much that there probably isn't a more hyped band in the genre. With all the derivative nature of what they play, they do it so qualitatively that the band's rise is predictable. This clean pop-punk vocal of Brian - this is obviously for girls, but Eric's extreme is honey for the ears, combined with fat breakdowns just meat. The new album didn't hook me as much as TRAUMA, but they keep a good bar.

8. Palaye Royale - Fever Dream

In the year of My Chemical Romance reunion to maximally cosplay their The Black Parade - you have to be very confident in yourself. And the record turned out excellent even though The Bastards two years earlier turned out brighter to my taste.

7. Loqiemean - Пов3стка

The trio of albums about "the agenda" opens with the third agenda from Loqiemean. I didn't notice before, but the further it goes, the more Loqiemean becomes Russian System of a Down. In music, and in style, and in lyrics. Пов3стку I listened to only a few times and didn't return to it, because it's all very hard and painful. But qualitatively Roman moved to another level, hard not to note this.

6. Horus - Рагнарёк и точка

To sew lyrics with words like Horus does - no one in Russian-speaking culture can do this. From the point of view of poetry this is two heads above everything else. He can. Unlike mixtapes, on albums the best beats from ex-Dark Faders are also added to this. And every time it turns out very cool. We note Красный Урожай, Марс наш, Эритрея - examples of how to literarily, colorfully and allegorically describe our reality.

5. ТАйМСКВЕР - молодость

A bit in advance I'm putting ТАйМСКВЕР so high - the most unpopular (judging by listeners on Spotify) band on this list. This time they managed to hook me thanks to context and in places monstrously Chester Bennington-like vocals. Their popularity accelerates slowly, but thanks to this the band goes to it very consciously, you can see how much they work and how they develop from release to release. Respect.

4. Bad Omens - The Death of Peace of Mind

Bad Omens in recent years transformed from a band that was almost impossible to distinguish from Bring Me The Horizon into a band that, according to many experts, released the best core album of the year, and incredibly original. The title track The Death of Peace of Mind, Like A Villain and Just Pretend - new classics of heavy music of the twenties.

3. Maggie Lindemann - SUCKERPUNCH

This masculine selection needed to be diluted. Young namesake of Till Lindemann from Texas decided to turn female pop-punk upside down, making a wildly cool mix of Miley Cyrus, Paramore, Avril Lavigne and Evanescence, with whose first albums she's almost the same age. Voice is cosmic, trap beats, guitars, everything as it should be to become a superstar in 2022.

2. МУККА - Мёртвые цветы

The author of the stickiest song of the decade in Russian (in my opinion, of course) grew very strongly and suddenly in just a year and a half since the last album. And this work became the most quality and serious of those that Serafim had at all. How does he write these choruses? To whom did he sell his soul for this? Химия, Северные ветра, Осень будет холодной, Неон, the intro is bomb. In general, you can list all tracks here.

1. Glasslands - The Deep

Here it's absolutely logical. I listened to this album twice as often as the closest pursuers. By the way, this rarely happens with me, but the first three are exactly positioned like this in my statistics on Last.fm.

Glasslands conquered me with the first single 9 years ago, with the debut 6 years ago, conquered now too. And they just took and did the same thing, because it's impossible to write better in the genre. Exemplary post-hardcore from the point of view of emotions. From the point of view of quality there's something to find fault with, but I listen to music for emotions. In addition, it's also conceptual, completely permeated with one mystical theme and atmosphere. Gives me chills.

Zero passing tracks. I can't listen to this album by tracks or on random. If I already launched Beggar, then I finished on Let Go, be sure. Best album of the year.

All my life I've been searching for something

It never ends, it never ends

There's no home, only what's in the deep end

It never ends, it never ends

Summary

I just want to believe that someday we'll again talk about music and carelessly go to festivals...

And the playlist...

Main tracks of the year as always collected in the playlist

Let's be friends on Spotify.