My Favorite 23 Albums of ‘23
People start putting out their year-end lists in fucking November, and that's just way too damn early. Albeit, it's a nice surprise. Better than when Christmas starts peaking it's ugly, consumerist nose into your life sometime in July, but come on, the year isn't even over yet.
This is why I always wait until the year is actually over before I share my lists. Way after all the other lists have been unleashed and everybody is burnt out on them, that's when I strike...
2023 was a year that found me listening to music less. I don't just mean the amount of music I listened to, I mean actually "listened" to music.
It was a hectic year, what with my family's preparation and subsequent move from our home country of America to Prague, in the Czech Republic, and music became the soundtrack to that chaos, mostly ingested while working the day job or preparing some aspect an overwhelming amount of things that needed to be checked off a list before we could finally depart. However I couldn't deny the lure of finding new, and awesome music.
In my previous list I mentioned that 2022 was the year I fell out of step with my beloved heavy metal, mostly because I wanted it to be something it didn't end up being for me: a influx of creative and new ideas to help push metal out of the boring, traditional rut it has found itself in, to, seemingly, unending praise from the battle-vest-clad metal hordes. I was hoping 2023 would be the year we could pick back up where our relationship left off.
It was not, but there were signs of improvement – a few new acts standing out, some old stalwarts standing tall so, fine, whatever, but it just gave me time to listen to music from elsewhere that wasn't metal, like my long time love affair with punk, that has been rekindled into a mighty bonfire over the past couple years.
So here's to 2023, I guess, and no matter what happened during it's lengthy stay, at least it brought good music with it.
MY FAVORITE 23 ALBUMS OF ‘23
Title Holder - What Better Time
I've been fighting a losing battle with modern ska that finally overtook me in 2023. The fatal blow deftly delivered by Title Holder and their endlessly infectious brand of punk/ska, a style that hasn't moved me in such a way since I was a wee lad, skateboarding around in the '90s, trying not the jar the skip protection on my Discman unless my Less Than Jake CD be interrupted.
Panopticon - The Rime of Memory
This fucking Panopticon guy, I tell you, makes the best music around, period. I'm hard pressed to think of any time they've released an album that didn't end up on my yearly list, and, I can't. "The Rime of Memory" hit just at the right time, me having finally begun to overcome my own personal midlife crisis and Panopticon weaving together the idea of climate crisis with his midlife crisis... just... fucking... brought me to my knees.
Creeper - Sanguivore
I have an undying fire in my heart for the over-the-top, bombastic, overtly cheeseball and theatrical music created by Mr. Meatloaf and Jim Steinman at the peak of their musical partnership. It's so magnanimous it's no wonder nobody has ever attempted to reach it's height, that is, until Creeper pumped the formula full of gothic punk death rock and dropped it in my fucking world.
Blood Command - World Domination
Just when I thought all originality had been sucked right out of the ass of heavy music, only to be replaced with endless throwback worship and staunch musical traditionalism, did Blood Command kick down the fucking door, give the "old school" brigade atomic wedgies, then blast their faces off with a rapturous blast of punk, hip-hop, black metal, hardcore, emo, and pop, leaving the nerds to pick up their own broken teeth.
Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS
The darkest of dark metal bands can't even hold a candle to the raw emotional outrage of scorned young women and the killer bee of this latest front is Olivia Rodrigo, bellowing her woes and crying her eyes out over her brand of light punk, rock infused pop. Let it out, boys. You'll feel so much better.
Final Gasp - Mourning Moon
There are no shortage of bands out there lifting heavily from the blueprint laid out by The Misfits but Glen Danzig's middle child, Samhain, gets less love despite it being just as good as The Misfits, or Danzig.
Final Gasp dip their toe in Samhain's sanguine pool of darker, gristlier, punk sinew but bring with them their own death rock inspired flair that creates something familiar, yet veering just over the edge into new territory that makes the mixture much more potent.
Codefendants - This is a Crime Wave
Combine the street style poetry of Get Dead and the catchier, pop-influenced punk of NOFX with some hip hop and you get the Codefendants, a band that actually includes members of both mentioned bands, who made one of the most unique punk albums of the year.
Wayfarer - American Gothic
Wayfarer have paved a path that is uniquely their own by combining the mysticism and bombast of black metal with the pathos and romanticism of the American west. However, it's not as basic as them putting on a cowboy hat and strumming a banjo, Wayfarer has captured the dusty, tragic, and, well, "American Gothic" nature of the west and has driven black metal before it. It sounds like Colorado, the band's, and my, original home. It feels more like Colorado than anything I've experienced in that state. It's their masterwork.
Lydia Loveless - Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again
No music felt as personal, heartbreaking, or smart-assed as Lydia's this year. She manages to cut through all the bullshit with lyrics that don't hold your hand, or care about your preconceived notions of how a sad song should be. Her music is as poetic as it is frank, as it is painfully relatable.
100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs
100 Gecs is all the proof I need that the next generation of music is in good hands. Their unabashed revelry in smash-banging all genres together into one chaotic and ear pleasing cacophony makes everybody else seem like tired old folks by comparison. Your band is just out there doing the same-ol'-same-ol' while this is happening?
Sacred Outcry - Towers of Gold
It wouldn't be a year-end list without some glorious power metal and nobody out-gloried Sacred Outcry this year. How could they? This is power metal at the grandest of levels: sweeping fantastical soundscapes, furious yet melodic guitars, and the most soaringly epic vocals provided by Daniel Heiman of Lost Horizon fame, who, arguably, created one of the best power metal albums of all time. This ain't far off from that. I dare you to not raise your fist while listening to this. I triple-dog dare you.
Fucked Up - One Day
It's hard to even describe what Fucked Up do. They're spiritually like a prog band making a rock opera, but physically and sonically a punk band. I know, that sounds crazy, but nobody does anything like Fucked Up and that's the punkest thing. That, and, writing and recording an entire album in 24 hours, which is what they did here.
Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium
Death metal has of late been retreading fairly worn ground, reveling in the sounds and styles of bands long past their primes, and, for some reason, being heaped with praise for this traditional embrace.
Boring.
Meanwhile, Horrendous just decided they weren't going to sound like any other death metal band around now and became an explosion of their own ideas and sounds, plowing away forward through the mounds of conformity instead of constantly looking back.
Scowl - Psychic Dance Routine EP
Hardcore's rocketing assent via embracing other genres, sounds, and walks of life, has been one of the most inspiring and musically creative endeavors as of late. Scowl is among the upper echelon of this new wave of hardcore mercenaries, who can pummel you with their raw aggression just as quickly as they can shift you into a melancholic haze. Unfuckable-with.
Necropanther - Betrayal
Necro Panther have decided that there isn't enough rip-roaring, thrash metal-ing, melodic death metal science fiction concept albums out there and have steadfastly been building on that idea album by album. This most recent album applies the formula to the seminal movie "The Warriors," and, fucking rips so hard.
Death Pill - Death Pill
At first this album has you thinking it's another aggressively angry, hardcore punk album, albeit a good one, but soon after, some melodic harmonies, satirical humor, and sheer piss and vinegar start to creep in, culminating in the final song "Would You Marry Me," which melds all these qualities into the perfect blend.
Code Orange - The Above
Any band actively trying to push the limits of heavy music, regardless of how it shakes out, gets high fucking marks in my book. Good thing Code Orange manages to make their swirling of hardcore, nu metal, industrial, and pop rock work so phenomenally well.
Majesties - Vast Reaches Unclaimed
Sometimes all you fucking want is the sweet sound of unfiltered Swedish melodic death metal. So what's a jerk to do when the preeminent Swedish Melodic death metal band, In Flames, hasn't touch that style in over a two decades? Make it yourself, which is exactly what Majesties has done here, triumphantly, I might add.
Katatonia - Sky Void of Stars
Other times all you fucking want to do is sit in the dark, drenched in the melancholic, goth-y moodiness of etherial synths, down-tuned plodding guitars, and poetically morose lyrics, so thank the maker Katatonia has been filling that need for decades and seemingly has no plans to stop.
False Fed - Let Them Eat Fake
Current Discharge singer Jeff Janiak teamed up with legendary Amebix guitarist Stig C Miller, and drummer Roy Mayorga from Nausea, and Ministry fame, to craft this perfectly crusty, politically fierce, post-punk, pounding, blaster of an album. To be honest, there was little chance that a band with this pedigree wouldn't have made it on my list even if the music was so-so, but it's far from that.
boygenuis - the record
Speaking of team ups, Pheobe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker's "supergroup" managed to do what fairly few supergroups have ever managed: deliver on the promise of combining the musical prowess of each member and make a top-notch album of pure exhilarating music.
Colony Drop - Brace for Impact
Colony Drop made the best thrash metal album of the year by a fucking mile. By a million miles. It's not even close. They would have made it on this list based solely on the insanely energizing and fist-smashing glory of their song "The Guillotine," and it's rager of a chant "WE'VE CUT HEADS OFF FOR LESS," the best metal lyrics delivered all year, but each and every song is sheer thrash mastery.
Zorn - Zorn
Zorn does in 26 minutes what most metal bands can't do in an hour, which is deliver the goods with pure adrenalized, heavy fucking metal power, succinctly and effortlessly. This is metal at it's best, rawest, and in-your-face. Brevity is key and Zorn has unlocked the fucking door.