Musical Remedial Guide | Dominic Tardif’s list

After (another) year rich in musical love at first sight, here are the songs that have passed the test of time in the headphones of our journalists.

Tastes Just Like It Costsby MJ Lenderman

Imagine if Pavement ever tried to record a tribute to Neil Young or The Band. With Boat Songs, MJ Lenderman signs one of the best guitar albums of the year, one of the best albums of the year, period. Lanky country rock, sifted through an intimate knowledge of the history of American indie rock, in perfect balance between the bewitching nonchalance of a dragger and the impeccable songwriting craftsmanship of one of the greatest songwriters- composers of his generation.

The madman in the treeby Jonathan Nobody

The production of Neil Young – him again! – of the last 10 years is so uneven that each song touching a little bit on the grace of its beautiful years must be received as a gift, which was the case of Chevya 15-minute run from his 42^e disk, World Record. The best Neil Young and Crazy Horse song of the year, however, is not the work of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, but of Jonathan Nobody, who perhaps we take for granted so much each of his three albums is a reliable source of exquisite, brilliantly decanted references.

LittleThingsfrom Big Thief

There is a prettiness, almost a preciousness, in certain Big Thief songs which, I admit, sometimes end up attacking me. The good news ? There are several Big Thiefs in Big Thief, especially on Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, abounding double album, through which the favorite group of third wave cafés also honors its more experimental facet. Proof example: Buck Meek’s solo in LittleThingswhich is to the electric guitar what dripping is to paint.

Juliaby NOBRO

Emptying your RRSPs to attend the Bell Center at the rebirth of Blink-182? What’s the point, when you can go see NOBRO for a handful of dollars and really more fun. Not satisfied with giving one of the best rock shows in town (you have to admire a bongo solo by Lisandre Bourdages once in your life), the four queens of local punk rock choruses on disc that are impossible to dislodge from the mind. Too bad the compilations Big Shiny Tunes no longer exist ; they would be its heroines.

Down hereby Rosie Valland

With Emmanuelle, Rosie Valland was reincarnated as a pop singer, the kind of dodgy makeover that fails most of the time, but not here. Why ? Because the musician, after two albums to be classified in the folk or rock section, seems less to put on a mask than to remove one. She therefore does not arrive on this new planet as a tourist, but with a fine mastery of the cogs of a velcro chorus. The most successful reinvention of 2022.

the impossible peacockby Lysander

Alexandre Martel made three of the best records of the year in 2021 (those by Alex Burger, Lou-Adriane Cassidy and LUMIÈRE). More modest, he was satisfied in 2022 with the production of the fabulous album of his alter ego, Anatole, as well as that of Lysander, spiritual daughter of the witch that is Stevie Nicks and the refined melodist that is Diane Tell. . Although the pianist pays homage on Without forgetting to the poet Sylvia Plath, she is more in line with Virginia Woolf, in the sense that her feminism is first and foremost a way of defending her right to devote her life to creating and dreaming.

Very Online Guyfrom Alvvays

But what an irresistible subterfuge that consists in sublimating an immaculate melody by burying it under several thicknesses of echo and distortion. You still have to have them, the immaculate melodies, which is undeniably the case of the Toronto group Alvvays. On Blue Revher third album, the guitars are like a bed of down to stretch out in and Molly Rankin’s liquid voice is the most exhilarating of pain relievers.

ObsoleteVulgar Machines

One or two songs capable of rivaling the greatest records of a legendary group, that’s all I ask from a comeback album. disruptionthat of Vulgaires Machins, contains not only one or two, but at least five or six, of which Obsoleteone of those texts in which, rather than anathematizing, Guillaume Beauregard auscultates the tears caused in him by the violence of an era that uses the words “compassion” and “solidarity” in all winds, but which seems to ignore them the meaning.