Evergrey (songs from their new album, “A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament)” and last years “Escape Of The Phoenix), Machine Head (songs from their new album only) and The Butterfly Effect (songs from their new album and “Final Conversation” (2008)) took up a lot of space in my Top Songs 2022 Spotify List as each artist had new albums this year.

So did Free Spirits Rising, a one man band from Australia. It’s very diverse, ranging from old school thrash metal, heavy metal and hard rock, and its raw/demo sounding and I like it. A song is released every two months or something like that. Check out songs like “Midnight Train” (melodic hard rock), “Chasing Days” (80’s thrash), “Outside The Lines” (melodic metal), “It’s OK” (pop rock), “Time Trigger” (80’s thrash) and “It Starts With Me” (acoustic rock). There is a lot of variety there. Hell, chuck in “Prey” for its nod to AC/DC.

The Night Flight Orchestra – From Sweden, a side project from Extreme Metal musicians is 10 years deep into their career. Their songs, “Moonlight Skies” (2021), “White Jeans” (2021), “Burn For Me” (2021) and “Taurus” (2020) are still in my Top Songs lists.

Volbeat – From Sweden, “Shotgun Blues” (2021) and “The Passenger” (2021) are still in my Top Songs lists.

John Petrucci – From the U.S, “Happy Song” (2020) is still in my Top Songs lists.

De Mont – From Australia, the band broke up circa 1993/94, however their song “In My Dreams” (1989) is in my Top Songs list.

Daughtry – From the U.S, the song “September” (2009) and various tracks from his recent album “Dearly Beloved” (2021) are in my Top Songs list.

Birds Of Tokyo – From Australia, their song “Broken Bones” (2008) is in my 2022 list.

Dream Theater – From the U.S, “A Change Of Seasons” (1995) was a go to track this year.

Metallica – From the U.S “Master Of Puppets” (1986) is in my 2022 list. How can you not play it after “Stranger Things”.

Times Of Grace – From the U.S “To Carry The Weight” (2021) is in my 2022 list.

Disturbed – From the U.S “The Vengeful One” (2015) and “The Light” (2015) appeared in my 2022 list.

Ghost – From Sweden, the song “Griftwood” (2022) and “Kaisarion” are in my 2022 list.

Arch Enemy – From Sweden, the song “Poisoned Arrow” (2022) and “Handshake With Hell (2022) are in my 2022 list.

Vanishing Point – From Australia, songs like “The Fall” (2020) and “Count Your Days” (2020) are still doing the rounds.

Jorn – From Norway, his cover of “Running Up That Hill” was in my top songs playlists for the last three years, way before Kate Bush made a comeback on the back of “Stranger Things”.

Reckless Love – From Finland, their cover of “Bark At The Moon” (2022) is in my 2022 list.

Gun – From Scotland, reformed in a way and re-imagining some of their songs from their three big albums between 1989 and 1994. In this case “Better Days”, the 2022 version (the song originally came out in 1989) made it to my 2022 list.

Trivium – From the U.S, “The Defiant” (2020) is in my 2022 list.

Dio – Thank you God for giving us Ronnie James Dio (RIP). Classic songs like “Rainbow In The Dark” (1983) and “We Rock” (1984) are still sticking around.

Bad Wolves – From the U.S. their song “Lifeline” (2021) was in my Top 2022 list.

King King – From Scotland, their song “Fire In My Soul” (2020) was in my top songs.

Queensryche – From the U.S, the song “Walk In The Shadows” (1985) connected with me this year and it made it to my 2022 list.

Dee Snider – The voice of my youth, straight from the U.S, with “I Gotta Rock (Again)” is back in my Tip Songs list.

Black Label Society – From the U.S, “Angel Of Mercy” (2014) is still in my Top Songs lists. The guitar solo is one of my favourites ever.