TheKenWord’s and Carcharodon’s Top Ten(ish) of 2022


TheKenWord

Another year come and gone. 2022 felt like an eternity for this young sponge, and in some ways that was great for me, in others it was hell. I found a new therapist who has been a wonderful addition to my life and has helped me navigate new challenges introduced by significant changes in my ADHD treatment plan, a newfound dedication to the pursuit of relationships and companionship, and (not to get too heavy for this space) one of the toughest bouts of suicide ideation I’ve dealt with in over a decade. But as always, I got through all of that a stronger, better sponge with the help of my friends, my family, and everyone here at AMG. For that, I am eternally grateful. I couldn’t have done it without you all.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Steel Druhm for putting up with my repeated tardiness and flakiness this year, as that is not my usual convention and shall not be a fixture of my conduct in the years to come. I’d also like to thank Carcharodon for his continued dedication to being my list buddy, always by my side, and for resisting his urge to bite me; Sentynel for being a pillar of technological wizardry and for keeping this site perpetually up to date and stable; Madam X for making sure the promo sump is in prime grime-pumping condition; and AMG Himself for tolerating me and my chaotic tastes if for no other reason than because I can put a sentence together on occasion. And of course, I’d like to thank the rest of the AMG writing team and commenter community for always being an engaging group to interact with. You are all great folks, even if you make fun of me for liking cover songs too much! Lastly, I’d like to extend my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to everyone, both contributor and reader, for supporting our Stuck in the Filter series for the last eighteen months. I did not expect that to take off so strongly when I originally revived it in July of 2021, but it’s been one of my favorite things to organize and manage (with Steel Druhm‘s invaluable executive assistance, of course), and I hope it sees continued success in the new year.

Anyway, I’ll wrap this up by saying that this was hands down the most difficult list to arrange, so you’d better appreciate it! It was a labor of love (kinda).


#ish. Borealis // Illusions – I’ve been rooting for Borealis since I discovered Dr. A.N. Grier‘s review of The Offering,12 a respectable if sappy, symphonic power metal record. What really sold me on the band, though, was Matt Marinelli’s soulful vocals, which just elevated all of the material Borealis put out. Matt’s performance on Illusions is no exception, and the songwriting and musicianship here perfectly match his heart and passion. Emotional, compelling, and thoroughly engaging, Illusions is the record I knew Borealis was always capable of writing.

#10. Brymir // Voices in the Sky – I really, really liked Wings of Fire, Brymir’s previous album—and the first in their discography to capture my favor. Follow-up Voices in the Sky initially lacked the immediacy that Wings had in spades, but it possessed the stamina to fly higher and farther with time than its predecessor ever did. I simply cannot stop returning to this record, an absolute triumph in fast and victorious melodeath with enough bite to rip your skin apart and enough heart to lift you straight into Valhalla.

#9. Darkest Era // Wither on the Vine – Memorable and moody in equal measure, this is the rare doom release that manages to make it on my list without having either the funeral- or death- hyphenations attached. I can, and will, listen to this on repeat for days at a time. Credit for that goes to dynamic songwriting, crooning vocals, memorable performances, and warm tones. There is no doubt, Wither on the Vine is a beautiful, sad, and satisfying slab of melancholy metal.

#8. Vorga // Striving Towards Oblivion – The race for spots #8-#5 on this list was so close that, really, any of those four records could comfortably sit in whatever position therein. So it is somewhat arbitrary that I’ve placed Vorga’s debut full-length Striving Towards Oblivion at the bottom of that pile. Blasting into the stratosphere with a killer opener, this melodic black metal record never fails to engage and immerse, always shifting tones and textures in order to keep the momentum high right until the end. In short, Striving Towards Oblivion is an excellent ignition sequence to launch this young band’s career.

#7. De Profundis // The Corruption of VirtueIt took me a hot minute to appreciate De Profundis, but once their groove-laden approach to slightly proggy death metal clicked, I became obsessed. The Corruption of Virtue only deepened that obsession, exploding out of the gate with easily the best opening track of the year. Such gargantuan hooks should be registered as lethal weapons, but De Profundis fully understand how to wield them. Don’t come close to this record if you can’t take a beating.

#6. LiveWire // Under Attack! – Holy shit, friendos. This record is unstoppable. Heavy metal never hooked me as fast as LiveWire’s incredible debut, Under Attack! Between bouncy riffs, ripping solos, and unfuckwithable verse/chorus work, this colorful, exuberant record feels every bit the 1980s-inspired sci-fi adventure that the bright cover art suggests. If you want righteous tunes that are perfect for a spirited drive swerving and sliding around slick city streets, Under Attack! is your record, baby.

#5. Spider God // Black RenditionsYes, this is a covers album, but it is also an important album, even if only to me. It lit a fire in the deepest recesses of my soul that, for a long time, remained extinguished. And for all of the excessive, genuine hate that I received for my high scoring,3 both in the comments and in more personal spaces, the joy this record brought me over the course of a full year never marred. The impact it has had on my life never dulled. More than just an inexhaustible source of nostalgia for the best periods both of my upbringing and of my recent past, Black Renditions created a new core memory that will undoubtedly illuminate the darkest corners of my future. With that in mind, my only hope is that everyone in the metal community also finds a record that can heal their inner child the way Black Renditions helped me heal mine.

#4. White Ward // False Light – When I think of dramatic, cinematic metal, my first thought these last few years turns to White Ward. Since Futility Report, the Ukrainian noir-flavored black metal troupe consistently churn out compelling, ominous stories of personal strife and political unrest. The intimate nature of their compositions compels the heart to break, the soul to weep, and the spirit to fray. False Light, the band’s third release, is perhaps their most successful venture in that respect; an affecting journey of great depth and gravity that left me shattered.

#3. Scalpture // FeldwärtsWhen I tell you I wasn’t expecting Scalpture to scale the ranks as quickly as it did, I don’t exaggerate. In a matter of just a few spins, this war-torn slab of seriously gritty death metal captured my attention and my adoration. Within a few weeks, it was competing for Album o’ the Year. But of course, it couldn’t win the war in the end. Nonetheless, it fought valiantly and deserves its podium placement, and represents the best death metal had to offer in 2022.

#2. Kvaen // The Great BelowThe Funeral Pyre is a good album, to be sure, but I felt like it was tarnished with time. Not so with the follow-up, The Great Below. The Swedes’ sophomore effort has the immediacy I want from thrashy black metal coupled with the staying power to break my spine all year long without rest. These songs are infectious, memorable, fun as hell, and impossible for me to resist. Easily my favorite black metal album since Paara’s Riitti, it more than earns its place here at #2 in 2022.

#1. Imperial Circus Dead Decadence // 殯――死へ耽る想いは戮辱すら喰らい、彼方の生を愛する為に命を讃える――。 – Let it be known that there is a wide gap between my #1 and #2 records this year. Nothing prepared me for this, from the anime tiddies and weird feet on the cover to the incredible music bursting with insane riffs, mind-blowing choruses, unbelievable musicianship, and adventurous compositions. At a staggering hour and twelve minutes, Imperial Circus Dead Decadence’s third full-length—and first in eleven years—feels to me like forty unbelievable minutes of God-tier, neoclassical extreme metal. Each and every fantabulous song gives me something of substance and excitement to cherish long after the final epic chorus of “天聲” brings the record to its final rest—until I inevitably shatter that replay button again. I may not be able to understand a single line either, whether sung, screamed, growled, or squealed, but I can’t help but sing, scream, growl, and squeal along from start to stop in what can only be described as vague gibberish. Bombastic, immense, and indelible, 殯――死へ耽る想いは戮辱すら喰らい、彼方の生を愛する為に命を讃える――。has been my best friend, my closest companion, and my favorite album of 2022 without peer.

Honorable Mentions:

  • Corpsessed // Succumb to Rot – You want death? You want riffs? You want rot? You want Corpsessed.
  • Cosmic Putrefaction // Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones – Sickly twisted blackened death with more depth than you would expect.
  • Fit For an Autopsy // Oh What the Future Holds – Deathcore for folks who want songwriting and actual, bona fide RIFFS in their deathcore.
  • Hath // All That Was Promised – Brutal, but with a melodic streak and a blossoming identity, Hath finally paid All That Was Promised in full.
  • Messa // CloseMessa was so incredibly, uhhh… close to stealing my (ish) spot this year. Stoner desert doom for folks with a thirst for great songwriting and unbeatable voKILLS.
  • Ósserp // Els nous cants de la Sibil·la – As close as any HM can be to proper listing, this disgusting and unique deathgrind record is a standout in the genre.
  • SepticFlesh // Modern Primitives – Another notch in these Greeks’ belt for killer symphonic death metal with a singular identity.

Songs o’ the Year:

  1. Bloodywood – “Yaad”
  2. Kvaen – “Sulfur Fire”
  3. Imperial Circus Dead Decadence – “百鬼夜行 -Pandemonic Night Parade-“
  4. Scalpture – “Stahlbad”
  5. Spider God – “Genie”
  6. Ascension – “Sayonara”
  7. Tómarúm – “Awake into Eternal Slumber”
  8. Vorga – “Starless Sky”
  9. White Ward – “False Light”
  10. De Profundis – “Ritual Cannibalism”
  11. Epica – “Human Devastation”

EP o’ the Year:

Epica // The Alchemy Project – This totally sounds like an obvious choice coming from me, but I just couldn’t resist this excellent collection of collaborative songs, featuring talent from Fleshgod Apocalypse, Insomnium, Aborted, God Dethroned, Soilwork, Shining, Charlotte Wessels, Myrkyr, Kamelot, Uriah Heep, Wintersun, MaYaN, and Powerwolf. More importantly, each guest was encouraged to contribute real creative control over each song in which they feature, making this unholy concoction of crazy cool, excellent songs even more exciting. It’s passion projects like this that always get my heart pumping and my head banging.

Best Thing I Missed in 2022:

Trollfest // Flamingo Overlord – I didn’t get my first chance to try this album until way after my cutoff for list season eligibility, despite this wet and wild record’s May release date. But make no mistake, had I been aware of it earlier, it would have placed somewhere in the bottom half of my Top 10. This release is oodles of fun, for fans of Tardigrade Inferno, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Weird Al Yankovic, and Finntroll. And it’s about an incompetent totalitarian flamingo dictator partying day in and day out while he clumsily oppresses his constituent flamboyances! How could anyone possibly resist that premise???


Carcharodon

I’m not sure how I feel about this experimental year of 15 months. I mean, 2022 has been 15 months long. At least. Hasn’t it? It must have been. There is no other explanation. On the one hand, this has allowed me to pack in an awful lot of shit, from moving house and changing jobs, while continuing the full-time role of semi-professional (and fairly irritable) Shark Pup Wrangler, to getting away for an actual real life holiday (on a plane no less) and making it to my first festival in … well, I don’t actually know how long (where I naturally got COVID for the first fucking time), and much more. And so, while large parts of the world (very much including my little corner of it in the UK) may be on literal and/or metaphorical fire, it hasn’t been a totally awful year.

On the other hand, putting together this List after what feels like much more than a single year’s worth of new music has been bloody hard. Probably the hardest it’s been since I started writing in this awful place over four years ago. It’s also fair to say that all the graduating n00bs have helped not at all. Not only is more metal being reviewed (and Dear Hollow‘s productivity making everyone except Steel look bad) but there are more questionable takes than ever to be wary of. No longer is it just the delectable Doom_et_Al or that loveable r4.0gue Holdeneye that I have to look out for. No, now I have to be alive to the whims and overrating bastardry4 of Thus Spoke, Dolphin Whisperer, Maddog, Itchymenace, and Ferox; none of them above raining down high scores to lure me in with promises of great riffs but so often letting me down. Sorry, I mean welcome, great to have you all, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Luckily, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I can still rely on my adorable, aquatic invertebrate Listmate—with whom I anticipate I will have even less overlap than in previous years—TheKenWord for his consistent cheer, love, and joyous outbursts, as much as I can on El_C for his contrariness and on Doc Grier to bellow at every idiot in sight to shut up. As ever, Steely D looms over us all, like the vaguely threatening (and overworked) father figure that he is. Of course, the only reason we do what we do on this site is for ourselves. The fact that a load of now-familiar bots turn up to lampoon our hard work and drop shocking takes in the comments is merely a coincidence. But a happy one, I suppose. The site would probably be a duller place without you all. So thank you.

Now, here is my List, over which I have labored and swithered for many days. Be kind. Love one another me.


#ish. Konvent // Call Down the Sun – When I decided to give this great little death doom record the TYMHM treatment, I liked it a lot (obviously) but didn’t see it making an appearance on The List. Somehow though, it just stayed on, grabbing more play time, each spin edging its pummelling, crushing sound closer to this, its final resting place. Harsh and abrasive from the first sepulchral notes of opener “Into the Distance,” Call Down the Sun has a bludgeoning weight to it, that recalls the likes of fellow Danes, LLNN. On first listen, the crushing intensity of much of the record (“Grains” or “Sand is King”) obscures the finer details that Konvent weaves into the sound. A record that repays all time spent with it.

#10. Grima // FrostbittenThis is the fourth time I have had to produce my List for this here site, and it is the third time that the Russian brothers Grimazov56 have made an appearance on it. That is some incredible consistency. Their take on atmospheric black metal, this time featuring MOAR accordion (bayan), just works for me. The basic backbone of their sound is atmoblack, which I get on with as a style anyway. But it is the traditional and folk elements from the Russian wilderness that infuse Frostbitten (as they did on previous outings), which elevate Grima from the crowd. Lurching from acoustic passages to raging black metal tumults and tundra-sweeping atmospheric passages, Frostbitten is probably Grima’s most consistent and fluid record to date, and I loved it from the first listen. That was all the way back in sunny July, and I’m still spinning it these icy December days.

#9. Hath // All that Was Promised – For the longest time, I was sure Hath hath secured a surefire place on my main List. As the year progressed into its thirteenth month, All that Was Promised began a slide slowly toward HMs or, maybe, out of contention altogether. Blackened death done this fucking well is rare, however, and it was only a matter of time before Hath mounted a counteroffensive. Massive, scorching riffs and artillery-like shots from the drums, paired with tight songwriting and a slight trim in runtime from the band’s last effort, catapulted this ravening beast of an album back up onto the List. Something that ties together many picks on this year’s List is flow, the way the record transitions seamlessly from one piece to the next, and Hath hath this in abundance.

#8. Psychonaut // Violate Consensus Reality – On Violate Consensus Reality, Belgian progressive post-metal trio Psychonaut proclaims the formation of a new world through the acceptance of a new human identity. Highfalutin indeed. But the expert mix of slow build dynamics, progressive excursions, and sudden explosions of fury allows Psychonaut to pull off its vision with aplomb. The addition of guest vocal appearances from Brutus’ Stefanie Mannaerts and Colin H. van Eeckhout of Amenra lift the epic title track to a whole new plane of existence, adding an ethereal quality to Psychonaut’s palette. A compelling album that gradually unfurls as it progresses, Violate Consensus Reality is outstanding. I had expected that Ol’ Huck, who put me onto this record in the first place, would TYMHM it. But he failed me, so I had to go and do it myself, meaning you’ll just have to cope with my musings, knowing Huck‘s would’ve been better.

#7. Vorga // Striving Toward Oblivion – All the way back in February, TheKenWord started waxing lyrical about this new black metal thing he’d got his soft, absorbent mitts on. The trouble is, Kenneth waxes lyrical about a great many things, and it’s hard to find the time to check them all out. I am very glad I did investigate this one though, as Vorga’s space-themed black metal offering is killer. Ripping straight out the gates on “Starless Sky”, Striving Toward Oblivion is not fucking about. In one sense, Vorga is pretty straightforward melodic black metal, touched with the black ‘n’ roll of a Wormwitch, but the huge melodies that drift around the hyper-aggressive, heavy core of Striving Toward Oblivion, like gorgeous nebulae, carry the record to another dimension.

#6. Tishina // Uvod – There was no doubt Tishina would make my List from the first moment I heard the gorgeous melodic guitar lines of this petite death doom number. A much gentler but no less crushing journey than my other death doom TYMHM contribution, Konvent’s Call Down the Sun, Uvod channels the classics like early Katatonia, Saturnus, and Mourning Beloveth, doing nothing new but everything right. Is it a classic itself? Perhaps not but it’s damned tasty death doom, coupling a deep melancholy with a beautiful sense of hope in its quicksilver-smooth riffs and harsh, gravelly vocals.

#5. Kardashev // Liminal Rite – Arizona deathgaze outfit Kardashev, newly (and deservedly) signed to Metal Blade, secured one of three 4.5s that I dished out in 2022.78 Liminal Rite’s tale of an aging man who finds his day-to-day existence slowly diverging from his reality, is truly heartbreaking. Progressive death and post-metal weave around each other, creating an ever-shifting canvas of fury and sorrow, daydreams and nightmares. I also maintain that Kardashev singer Mark Garrett is one of the most talented and versatile vocalists currently working in extreme metal. While I may have cooled slightly on the production, which buries the guitars a bit deeper in the mix than I’d like, it is still undoubtedly one of my favorite journeys of the year, carrying an emotional heft few other records I have heard this year can compete with.

#4. White Ward // False Light – One that can definitely compete in terms of heft, however, is False Light. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really get White Ward’s last effort, Love Exchange Failure or the adulation heaped upon it from some quarters. False Light, however, is a whole different story. The ebb and flow of dreamy jazz, blazing tremolos and blasts, harsh rasps and cleans, is just mesmerizing. While those cleans may not be the strongest in the game (far from it, in fact), they are an integral part of the atmosphere that White Ward generates so flawlessly. Exceptional from start to finish, with an incredible vision for creating a long-form work of art, False Light is a phenomenal record.

#3. Cult of Luna // The Long Road North – 2019’s A Dawn to Fear topped my first-ever List here at AMG and, to be honest, for much of this year I thought The Long Road North would see Cult of Luna sitting pretty at #1 again. Every bit as good as ADtF, The Long Road North is yet another masterpiece in CoL’s huge catalog of masterpieces. Perhaps because they have been doing it for so long, I feel they are a somewhat overlooked, and often much-maligned band who almost never disappoints.9 The Long Road North has a grandeur and cinematic scope to it that hugely impressed me, even as an avowed CoL fanboy who went in with high expectations. This was coupled with a flow that rivals anything the band has produced before. Even at 70 minutes long, everything feels essential, and it only very narrowly misses out on the #1 spot.

#2. The Otolith // Folium Limina – A simply stunning melodic, post-doom phoenix that arose from the ashes of SubRosa, The Otolith delivered near perfection on their first outing. The symphonic—by which I mean, soaring and grandiose, not actual symphony orchestra, as one commenter sought to argue—doom of Folium Limina blew me away. The interplay of the violins, massive guitar work, and (mostly) clean, female vocals are borderline hypnotic. Whether it’s the epic opener, “Sing no Coda,” the gorgeous “Ekpyrotic,” or the crushing “Bone Dust”—on which the sample from Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator hit me like a ton of bricks—there is simply no filler or padding to be found. Despite the album’s length, The Otolith have gauged it to perfection, sculpting their creation with skill and preternatural affinity for each other’s playing that comes from long years collaborating in SubRosa. Since I reviewed Folium Limina, it’s been engaged in a vicious duel for supremacy with both Cult of Luna and the album that, ultimately, beat them both. If I were to write this List again next week, there is every chance The Otolith would be victorious.

#1. An Abstract Illusion // Woe – Now, I know what you’re thinking: “something has gone wrong here. This fucking numpty of a shark has put an album he rated a 4.0, above three others he awarded 4.5s.” You are correct that that is what has happened. Whether something has gone wrong, I am not sure. All I can say is that Woe is my most-played album of 2022. Whenever I am at a loss for what to put on, I reach for this incredible album. An Abstract Illusion’s long-form progressive death metal never gets old for me. Every spin reveals some tiny, brilliant detail, whether in the vocals, guitar work, or drums, that I had not previously taken in. “Tear Down this Holy Mountain” and “In the Heavens Above, You Will Become a Monster” are both flawless, brutal masterpieces, while Woe as a whole has an urgent vibrancy about it that carries me through every listen, leaving me breathless on the other side. The reason I hesitate to say there has been a mistake in my scoring is that I do have one or two very minor gripes with this record (including some of the clean vocals), which I didn’t have with my 4.5s, about which I found very little to criticize. At the same time, it is An Abstract Illusion that I just keep coming back to again and again, and it is Woe that I love most. That it also wins artwork of the year10 hurts Woe not at all.

Honorable Mentions:

  • Final Light // Final Light – I’m not really a synth wave kinda guy, but this masterful blending of that style with my beloved post-metal by Cult of Luna’s Johannes Persson and James Kent (a.k.a. Perturbator) just works. It shouldn’t, but it does. And I’m very, very here for it.
  • Lathe // Tongue of Silver – Instrumental, drone-laced, Americana-themed doom. There’s not much more to say really, as that tells you everything about this record, even if it utterly fails to convey how beautiful, emotive and immersive Tongue of Silver is. Miss out at your peril.
  • Moonshade // As We Set the Skies AblazeFor me, this is the best melodeath of the year. It does exactly what I want from the genre, showering me with jagged riffs, huge drums, and harsh vox. Nothing more and nothing less. Great stuff.
  • Nostalghia // Au milieu de l’hiverAnother gorgeous example of an artist bringing something a little different to the atmoblack genre. Mexico’s Alex Becerra has turned out at least three albums this year, all of exceptionally mournful beauty, but this was, for my money (which I gladly handed over), the best of the bunch.
  • Pure Wrath // Hymn to the Woeful Hearts – This melancholic, rage-fueled beast of an atmoblack album from Indonesia hits hard. Not least because of the story its creator chose to tell, that of a mother who survived the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 and her fifty years of life following horrific events that saw her son kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.
  • Spider God // Black RenditionsPerhaps the most divisive record of the year,11 at least gauging by reactions in the comments section (and the AMG staff room), Black Renditions was also probably the most fun. Black metal is not renowned for its jollity, but Spider God’s take on these pop classics never fails to bring a smile to my face, and that is more than enough to earn its spot here.
  • The Temple // Of Solitude Triumphant – A (very) late entry to this List, displacing some other worthy contenders, The Temple offers up an epic slab of traditional doom in the vein of Candlemass, with traces of Saint Vitus and even Sleep, which caught me off guard. And the use of multiple voices and choirs hooked me in. A late November release, with a bit more time, this could well have placed much higher.

Songs o’ the Year:

    1. An Abstract Illusion – “In the Heavens Above, You Will Become a Monster”
    2. Zeal & Ardor – “Götterdämmerung”
    3. Panzerfaust – “The Far Bank at the River Styx”
    4. Cult of Luna – “Blood Upon Stone”
    5. Kardashev – “Lavender Calligraphy”
    6. Blackbraid – “Barefoot Ghost Dance on Blood Soaked Soil”
    7. Kanonenfieber (ft. Trevor Strnad) – “The Yankee Division March”
    8. Psychonaut (ft. Stefanie Mannaerts and Colin H. van Eeckhout) – “Violate Consensus Reality”
    9. Cave In – “Nothin'”
    10. Konvent – “Harena”
    11. Nostalghia – “Rêverie”

Metal Highlight of the Year:

2022 was the year I finally it to ArcTanGent, a festival I have wanted to go to for a very long time and which I expected to be at in 2020, what with having bought a ticket and everything. Well, in 2022, I got there, and it was everything I hoped for and more, featuring incredible highlights from the likes of Zeal & Ardor, Jo Quail, and Cult of Luna. It also gave me the opportunity to spend some time with the site’s own Dainty British Jesus, Sentynel, which was fantastic. Read about our experience here.

Metal Disappointment of the Year(s):

Nazis. NSBM. Nazi defenders and apologists. Of course, this could go for any year and, sadly, it’s part of being a black metal fan that you have to be on the lookout for sneaky (and not so sneaky) Nazis. But, in the wake of last year’s Listurnalia, the issue snapped into sharper focus for those of us here than it had for a while, triggering some tough conversations and AMG Himself speaking to the Unwashed Masses. That post garnered some fantastic responses and some… less fantastic ones. Throughout 2022, it seemed to me that a lot of NSBM bands, or bands with highly sketchy members, managed to infiltrate our sacred promo sump and, frankly, I find it so fucking depressing that this, and associated hate, is still such an issue in a genre I love. But here we are.

Until next year, adieu x

Show 11 footnotes

  1. Wait, Grier likes The Offering?! – Holdeneye
  2. Fuck you, Holdy! – One Pissed Off Grier
  3. You’re still an idiot. Love, Grier
  4. Fuck off, it’s probably a word and, if it isn’t, it should be.
  5. I’m re-using this because it got an approving note from Holdeneye last time and I crave acceptance and praise from anywhere I can get it.
  6. Even from me? – Holdeneye
  7. Three too many, according to the Steel Overseer.
  8. You’re as bad as I am! – Holdeneye
  9. Yes, I know I literally listed the Raging River EP as one of my disappointments of 2021 but that’s different, a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”.
  10. For me anyway. I’ve not seen GardensTale‘s official art list at the time of writing.
  11. Hold my beer. – Holdeneye
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