Similarly to the AI algorithm used above it feels like Bodega have been fed an audio diet of every New York band for the past 50 years as an experiment to see what comes out of it. The result is a classic NYC rock record that swings from The Ramones to more modern contemporaries like LCD Soundsystem and Parquet Courts. The lyrics are smart the songs are catchy and there's barely any filler on this fantastic second album.

EE continue to be Englands most underrated band, maybe they're just too weird for the mainstream, but on their 6th album they continue to push the boundaries of what it means to be a pop band. For this record they used AI to generate some lyrics, apparently feeding the robot posts from 4Chan, verses from Beowulf and other weird things, but they may as well have just fed it all their previous work because it still sounds as bonkers as everything else they'd previously released.

Must be one of the hardest working bands of the year, so many gigs, so many achievements. I immediately fell in love with Yard Act last year after their brilliant debut singles Fixer Upper and Dark Days but was mortified to see that neither of those made the album. What on earth were they thinking?! Apparently they didn't fit the narrative arc, and they're artists, y'know? Anyway, I needn't be worried the album is brilliant, the aforementioned arc is genius, the writing is sublime, the hooks are big, there's emotion, humor, satire and tunes coming out their arse.

After the viral hit of 2021 - Chaise Longue, I don't think anyone expected Wet Leg to have a full album of similar quality catchy tunes. But surprisingly they did, and they backed up their viral smash with a string of great singles and an album which hinted at a lot more depth than what you might have first thought.

Two albums from Ol' Jacky White this year, Fear of the Dawn was my hands down favorite, as good as latter day White Stripes. Really heavy, full of riffs and just great fun.

New NYC band Mary Shelley blew me away at this years New Colossus festival. They look like long island frat brothers but sound like an 80's post punk band twice their age. A brilliant live band with some fantastic tunes and the below is one of my favorites of the year.

10 years since the release of An Awesome Wave propelled them to hipster stardom I was happily surprised by this release, its the album i've turned to most when I needed to chill out. The first half of this LP is as good as anything they've ever done, it peters out a bit in the 2nd half but still worth a listen all the way through.

The first of four debut albums in my top 10 showing the health of indie-rock in 2022. It may not be the most popular genre right now but the scene definitely is in somewhat of a renaissance. Bug Club are a Welsh 3 piece and sound like a mixture of Pavement, Los Campesinos and Belle and Sebastian. They write melodic, funny, lo-fi indie 3 minute pop songs and I urge you to check them out.

It's testament to Spoon's quality that even on their 10th studio album they're still writing songs as great as Wild and the Hardest Cut. The former was my most played song of the year.