LISTMANIA 2023: A YEAR-END LIST BY PROFESSOR D. GROVER THE XIIITH

(Our friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth (ex-The Number of the Blog) has been joining us this time of year for many years to share his diverse year-end lists, and does so again now. There’s a lot here, and it truly is diverse.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. Another year ends, and with that ending comes a barrage of year-end album lists and Spotify Wrapped graphics. Personality, I enjoy writing these lists because it helps me contextualize the past 11 or so months of music listening. As with previous years, this year featured an abundance of really good, entertaining music across a number of genres, and narrowing my list down to 20 was extremely difficult.

Before I get to the list proper, however, here’s a few lists of honorable mentions, divided into a few loose categories. This year, I found myself connecting a number of albums together due to certain similarities, and while I had my struggles in trying to figure out how to represent this in my list, in the end I settled on this method (with a few notable exceptions that made my top 20… more on that later). Anyway, let’s get this started.

 

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS, PART I: NEW ALBUMS BY RESPECTED VETERANS

Cattle Decapitation – Terracite

Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific

Dying Fetus – Make Them Beg For Death

Autopsy – Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts

Cryptopsy – As Gomorrah Burns

Suffocation – Hymns From The Apocrypha

Rotten Sound – Apocalypse

Obituary – Dying Of Everything

2023 saw a number of releases by bands that have long since established themselves as pillars of the metal community. Each of these albums were solid, and while they may not reach the heights of the artists’ classic releases, all of these bands still have something left on the proverbial tank.

 

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS, PART II: COUNTRY MUSIC ISN’T ALL GARBAGE

Chris Stapleton – Higher

Tyler Childers – Rustin’ In The Rain

Wheeler Walker Jr.  – Ram

Turning on the local country music station and listening for a while, one would be forgiven for perhaps thinking that the country music scene is in dire straits. With the occasional notable exception, most of the songs that you might hear on the radio are interchangeably bland, featuring the occasional steel guitar or fiddle transposed over uninspired hip-hop beats, with lyrics mostly espousing the joy of drinking beer/whiskey/tequila while sitting in your truck/down by the creek/in your local dive bar.

Two of those exceptions made this meager list, however. Chris Stapleton has accomplished something rare in music by becoming a major star solely by his considerable talents as a singer and songsmith rather than image, thanks to his incomparable voice. And Tyler Childers, also considerably talented although not as big a star, gained popularity and notoriety by releasing a music video that featured a rural love story featuring a gay couple set in 1950s Appalachia.

And then, there’s Wheeler (aka comedian Ben Hoffman). He’s the kind of artist you won’t hear on the radio, mostly because his hilariously explicit songs are basically the country music equivalent of Anal Cunt. On Ram, Wheeler actually trades in his country sound for  heavily ZZ Top-inspired southern rock, but his gladly gleefully obscene lyrics are as strong and cringe-inducing as ever.

 

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS, PART III: HIP-HOP ARTISTS BROADENING THEIR HORIZONS

K.Flay – MONO

Dessa – Bury The Lede

Watsky – Intention

Danny Brown – Quaranta

JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown – Scaring The Hoes

Prof – Horse

I don’t listen to a ton of hip-hop, mostly sticking with a handful of artists that I tend to enjoy, but this year had several good releases from several of those artists. K.Flay has been driving her raw, personal music in various genre-defying directions for her past several albums, and MONO pushes that ever further, adding bits of harsh noise and indie rock to her ever-expanding palette. Dessa has long been one of my favorite lyricists, even as she juggles hip-hop, pop, and dance music styles across eleven brilliantly-written tracks.

Watsky finally got to finish out his three-album triptych with Intention (following up Complaint and Placement in a rather fascinating naming scheme that makes more sense when you see the three album covers lined up together), with the first half releasing normally and the second half only releasing after a fairly sizable set of puzzles and scavenger hunts. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the second half as much as the first half, relegating Intention to honorable mention status.

Danny Brown was busy this year, releasing both a noisy, weird collaboration with JPEGMAFIA and a much more introspective solo outing contemplating his 40th birthday. And Horse finds Prof laying down his usual mix of rapid-fire braggadocio, self-aware ridiculousness, and honest, introspective lyrics over a wide array of beats and horn samples.

 

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS, PART IV: BLACK METAL WITH MELODY

Enslaved – Heimdal

Tryglav – The Ritual

Ninth Circle – Dis, Emerge

Stortregn – Finitude

Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags

UADA – Crepuscule Natura

Immortal – War Against All

Sodomisery – Mazzaroth

Mortuary Drape – Black Mirror

Krigsgrav – Fires In The Fall

Hot Graves – Plaguewielder

Frozen Dawn – The Decline Of The Enlightened Gods

Dyssebeia – Garden Of Stillborn Idols

Varathron – The Crimson Temple

Shylmagoghnar – Convergence

Panopticon – The Rime Of Memory

When it comes to black metal, I prefer mine to be cleaner and more melodic, and if this damages my kvlt street cred, well, I stopped caring about that a long time ago anyway. This year featured a bunch of great melodic black metal albums, more than I ever would have guessed, although the result was that (with few exceptions to come later) it was very difficult to pick favorites. All of these albums were considered for the top 20 at one point or another.

 

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS, PART V: DEATH METAL AND DEATH-ADJACENT

Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit

Man Must Die – The Pain Behind It All

Alkaloid – Numen

Linus Klausenitzer – Tulpas

Xul – Devangelic

Wormhole – Almost Human

Demented Heart – Frantic Epidemic

Metasphæra – Metasphæra

Exmortus – Necrophony

Asinhell – Impii Hora

Distention – Nothing Cones From Death

Kalmah – Kalmah

Xoth – Exogalactic

Sulphur Aeon – Seven Crowns And Seven Seals

Stillbirth – Homo Deus

Ne Obliviscaris – Exul

Mortem Obscuram – The Wretched Divinity

Gutslit – Carnal

Dripped – Rituals Of The Red Sun

Nervosa – Jailbreak

Crypto – Shades Of Sorrow

Arborescence Of Wrath – Inferno

Gridlink – Coronet Juniper

Convulsions – Grindcore Not War

As with black metal, there was a LOT of good death metal (and somewhat death metal related music) released this year that I simply couldn’t find room for in my top 20. All of these are excellent albums, and it pains me to have to exclude each of these.

 

And now, on to the list itself. First, my five(ish) favorite EPs from this year.

 

5. Cavalera Conspiracy – Morbid Visions / Bestial Devastation

When I heard that Max and Igor Cavalera were planning on re-recording the mighty Sepultura’s first two releases (technically this is an EP and an album, but for the sake of simplicity I’m combining the two, as this is of course a year of connections), I was skeptical. While there’s nothing wrong with revisiting and updating old material, part of the charm of early Sepultura is the rawness, something that is exceedingly difficult to recapture some 40 years later without having it feel contrived. And yet, to my pleasant surprise, they mostly succeeded. Maybe they’ll give Schizophrenia and Beneath The Remains a similar treatment.

 

4. Larkin Poe – An Acoustic Companion

My obsession with the work of the sisters Lovell has been pretty well documented in my last couple of year-end lists, and while 2023 did not see the release of a new Larkin Poe album, I did at least get this four-track EP featuring acoustic renditions of three newer and one older track. As is the case with the sisters’ series of covers on YouTube, stripping their songs down to acoustic and slide guitar and vocals allows each of those elements a little more room to shine.

 

3. Ghost – Phantomime

Ghost is no stranger to releasing covers, and to be honest, this EP can be kind of hit-or-miss, but the strength of the two songs here that really hit is enough to justify this spot in the rankings. See No Evil, Hanging Around, and We Don’t Need Another Hero are all fine tracks, even if I’m not all that well acquainted with the originals. But it’s the cover of Iron Maiden’s Phantom Of The Opera and especially Genesis’ Jesus He Knows Me that really stuck with me. The latter is, in hindsight, the perfect kind of song for Ghost to cover, both in lyrical content and musical style, and it’s one of my favorite songs of the year.

 

2. Sky Pillar – Resurrection

I like my tech-death to be super catchy and Boston’s Sky Pillar, featuring Allegaeon drummer Jeff Saltzman, absolutely nails it. It’s not the most original sounding tech-death, but it’s so well done that I really don’t care.

 

1. Powerglove – Dovahkiin

I love Powerglove, and while the majority of their past output has been instrumental, their decision to cover four songs from Skyrim, three of which are songs from the in-game bards, necessitated the use of vocals (ably performed by guitarist Alex Berkson and guest vocalist Narcissa). This EP singlehandedly drove me to reinstall Skyrim and dive back in to the frosty north.

 

And now, the list you’ve all been waiting for: my 20 favorite albums of the year. Understand that this list is entirely based upon my enjoyment of the albums that follow and are in no way any attempt to quantify the albums that were “best” or critically acclaimed for the year. This is just the shit that I loved. Hopefully there’s something in here for just about everyone.

 

20. Insomnium – Anno 1696 / Fires In The Distance – Air Not Meant For Us

There were some solid melodic death metal albums released this year, and a few of those albums are still to come with regard to this list, but as I mentioned previously, there were an unusual number of releases this year that I found myself drawing parallels between. For Insomnium and Fires In The Distance, while the former is a band I was well familiar with and the latter a band I was not at all, it felt to me that both bands’ output shared a similar amount of mid-paced, mournful death metal of a more melodic persuasion. I generally prefer my music to be more up-tempo, but there were elements of both Anno 1996 and Air Not Meant For Us that I found deeply compelling.

19. Tardigrade Inferno – Burn The Circus

I had never heard of Tardigrade Inferno prior to reading a review of Burn The Circus, but I immediately discovered that they were my particular flavor of avant-garde, less Sleepytime Gorilla Museum / Idiot Flesh and more Stolen Babies / Dog Fashion Disco. The whole “metal plus circus music” isn’t exactly original, and there are a great many bands who wear the influence of Mr. Bungle with pride, but there’s something oddly endearing about the vocals of Tardigrade Inferno frontwoman Darya Pavlovich, who balances a certain amount of silliness with some genuine talent and versatility. Musically, Tardigrade Inferno skews heavier than the aforementioned artists, and the resultant mix works extremely well.

18. …And Oceans – As In Gardens, So In Tombs

Of the various black metal albums that I mentioned above, this is one of the albums that I kept finding my way back to. While these guys have been around for a long time (under a few different names), this is the first album since their classic A.M. G.O.D. that really drew me in. The melodic intersection of guitar riffs and keyboards proved to be incredibly memorable for me, making it one of my favorite black metal albums of the year.

 

 

17. The Zenith Passage – Datalysium / Pronostic – Chaotic Upheaval

This year had a lot of good technical death metal albums, far more than I could fit comfortably into this top 20 list, and while these two albums aren’t the last time we’ll see tech death on this list, both of these albums showed a little more creativity than a lot of their contemporaries to elevate themselves. The Zenith Passage lean heavy into off-kilter staccato riffs with synth accents and the kind of rapid-fire vocals that occasionally approach Archspire territory. Pronostic, meanwhile, ride the fretless bass skills of Xavier Sperdouklis to some incredible heights. Both albums offer something a little different than the rest of the tech-death crowd, cementing their spot on this list.

16. Rodrigo y Gabriela – In Between Thoughts… A New World

Acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela have been a personal favorite of mine ever since I saw their video for their song Hanuman and found myself mesmerized by their intricate sound, but on In Between Thoughts… A New World they explore some fairly new territory, with Rodrigo mostly playing an electric guitar, plus some synths and added orchestrations performed by the Bulgaria Symphony Orchestra. Still, Gabriela’s distinctive, percussive rhythm sound anchors the entire album, maintaining a signature element of the duo’s style while allowing the songs to feel fresh and different.

15. Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination

Of all of the previously mentioned albums by classic death metal artists, my second favorite old school death metal album ended up being by a relatively new artist, mostly because Glacial Domination generally sounds like a Bolt Thrower record. Frozen Soul lays down an entire album full of quality Bolt Thrower riffs, doing it better than any of the Bolt Thrower worship bands I’ve heard (including Memoriam, who have the unfair advantage of actually having a member of Bolt Thrower). Best Served Cold even does the classic Bolt Thrower fade-in. If you’re going to pay tribute to the style of a classic band, you need to do it well, and Frozen Soul do it best.

14. Wayfarer – American Gothic / Blackbraid – Blackbraid II

Mixing folk music and metal isn’t exactly an original concept; mixing American folk music and black metal is less common. Both Wayfarer and Blackbraid do this, taking vastly different approaches and demonstrating the diversity of American culture on its long and bloody history. Wayfarer blend black metal (among other metal styles) with Gothic Western and Americana, creating a seamless album of songs about cattle thieves, oil fields, and rail barons. Blackbraid, on the other hand, play more straightforward black metal with Native American themes and  instrumentation. The folk elements aren’t as strong, but the riffs and melodies crafted by the band’s mastermind Sgah’gahsowáh do a lot of the heavy lifting. Both albums are extremely well-written and just different enough to stand out.

13. Queens Of The Stone Age – In Times New Roman

It’s been a long time since Queens Of The Stone Age peaked on Songs For The Deaf, and the band that made that album is not the same band that made In Times New Roman. Still, a band that was known for its ever-shifting lineup has been stable for its last three albums and ten years, the longest such stretch in the band’s lifespan, and In Times New Roman feels like the best output from this lineup yet. Josh Homme still tends to lean into the skronky, off-kilter guitar lines of Era Vulgaris and after rather than the hard-driving riffs from before, but Paper Machete is the closest thing to that old style that they’ve done in a while, and songs like Time & Place, Carnavoyeur, and Emotion Sickness are incredibly memorable. The old Queens might be gone, but Homme and company have proven that they have something left in the tank.

12. Katatonia – Sky Void Of Stars

Katatonia are a pretty well known band at this point in their career, and although they have long since foregone their original death doom stylings in favor of sad bastard goth rock mixed with prog metal, they’ve perfected their style over the past decade and a half. Sky Void Of Stars represents, to me, the pinnacle of this sound, mixing Jonas Renske’s emotive vocals with massive guitar riffs in a way that has held my attention in a way that their previous albums haven’t.

11. Scar Symmetry – The Singularity (Phase II: Xenotaph) / Astralborne – Across The Aeons

Two of my favorite melodic death metal albums this year came from two very different sources. The first comes from Swedish melodeath legends Scar Symmetry, who somehow emerged from a six-year break to jump right back into doing what they do best: over-the-top melodeath with the kind of gargantuan hooks, dueling vocals, and shiny production that has made them a name through the years. The second in what I believe is a planned trilogy, Xenotaph picks up surprisingly well from the first album considering the gap between the two.

The second album comes from Toledo-based Astralborne, a power trio featuring members of Hammer Horde and Blood Of The Prophets. Their take on melodeath isn’t as flashy or dramatic as Scar Symmetry, but their willingness to marry absolute brutality with incredible guitar leads and intricate basslines makes them just as memorable. Across The Aeons would have been the best melodeath album of the year, of it weren’t for an album later in this list, but considering that it’s only Astralborne’s second full-length (their debut, Eternity’s End, is also excellent), this is a truly impressive release.

10. Thy Catafalque – Alföld

I’m lazy, so I’m going to quote my review of Alföld from earlier this year: “…this is definitely a leaner, meaner Thy Catafalque album, both in length (at 42 minutes this is definitely the shortest full-length album in the band’s discography) and in content. While this certainly feels like a conscious decision, it’s not at all out of character for a band that has consistently evolved from album to album across the breadth of its catalog. There’s nothing contrived about the shift in tone, merely a desire to do something a little different, and like pretty much every Thy Catafalque album, it works.”

In the end, I didn’t like Alföld as much as I like its predecessor, Vadak, but it’s still a very good album, as is evinced by its presence in my top 10. I stand by my usual assertion that Tamás Kátai is a mystical genius who can do no wrong.

9. Nuclear Power Trio – Wet Ass Plutonium

If you’re going to be a gimmick band, you’re going to need to back up your gimmick with good music. Nuclear Power Trio are extremely gimmicky, with its three members wearing the masks of various current/former world leaders/dictators/would-be dictators, and they back up that gimmick with some of the most catchy, technically impressive instrumental fusion metal you will ever hear. Featuring members of Allegaeon and Havok, Wet Ass Plutonium includes some of the most impressive bass playing you will hear all year. While most of the track names are political puns (Critical Bass Theory, Anti-Saxxers), the music is incredibly fun and a blast to listen to.

8. The World Is Quiet Here – Zon

Of all of the albums on this list, this was the one that took the most effort for me to make sense of. The World Is Quiet Here play the story of prog metal that bands like Between The Buried And Me have made their name with, but what really stands out for this band in particular is new vocalist Lou Kelly, who turns in by far the most distinctive, divisive performance of the year.

The man’s range is incredible, with a variety of harsh vocal tones, but the way that he sings his clean vocals definitely takes getting used to, with most of them taking on a sort of exaggerated lounge singer croon that leaves me wondering if this is an affectation or if this really is just how he sings. There’s no question that his clean vocal range easily rivals the likes of Mike Patton, but it can definitely be difficult to take seriously.

However, the result is an album that really has to be experienced, as it defies description, and ultimately it wound up as an experience that I found myself returning to throughout the year.

7. Colony Drop – Brace For Impact

From the opening moment of this album, when vocalist (former longtime NCS contributor) Joseph Schafer roars the album title, I found myself absolutely hooked. Colony Drop’s take on crossover thrash is excellent, and Schafer’s anime villain vocals elevate the entire album to another level, his deranged barks making lyrics about Castlevania and Mobile Suit: Gundam hit hard. Brace For Impact doesn’t overstay its welcome at under 35 minutes long, but it leaves a space colony-sized crater in its wake.

6. Cause N Effect – Validation Through Suffering / Invertebrated – Mass Planecide

A fun story: I had been listening to, and thoroughly enjoying, this debut album by Cause N Effect for a solid portion of the year. When I first heard Invertebrated’s Mass Planecide EP, I thought to myself, “Wow, this sounds a lot like Cause N Effect.” And then I looked up the band and discovered that the band’s sole member, Stef Mikolajczyk, was also the singer and guitarist for Cause N Effect, and then I felt like an idiot.

Anyway, as a result both bands’ songs sound very similar, and both are really, really good. Both bands play technical death metal with extremely heavy, chunky riffs bordering on djent but without the slavish Meshuggah worship. Cause N Effect is perhaps the more diverse of the two projects, with moments in various songs that recall the atmospherics of Fallujah or the rapid-fire choppiness of Archspire, but with an incredibly distinctive sound. In most years, this would be my favorite tech death release(s) of the year.

5. Aesop Rock – Integrated Tech Solutions

It is my firm opinion that Aesop Rock is far and away the best rapper out there. I understand that his wordiness and lyrical density, and his somewhat nasal delivery, may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they are most definitely mine.

Integrated Tech Solutions, like its predecessor Spirit World Field Guide, is loosely held together by a concept (here, it’s the kind of early ’90s business jargon and synth music that would find its way into a corporate training video), but that concept is applied sparingly. Instead, Aes generally applies his usual style into dazzlingly odd, sometimes humorous or deeply personal tracks about such diverse topics as drawing pictures of pigeons, an encounter with a tweaker breaking into his apartment, a brief encounter with Mr. T at a young age, and the death of Aesop’s grandmother.

At this point, Aesop has established his style and there aren’t really a lot of surprises here, but he remains a master craftsman who effortlessly outclasses every other rapper.

4. Vvon Dogma I – The Kvlt Of Glitch

It’s been almost ten years since the brilliant Canadian avant-garde metal band UnexpecT called it quits, and 12 years since the release of their magnum opus Fables Of The Sleepless Empire. I’ve been searching for a long time for a band to fill that particular unique void in my heart, but I also know deep down that there will likely never be another band that does what they did. However, Vvon Dogma I might be the next best thing. You see, the driving force of Vvon Dogma I is the man known as ChaotH, whose 9-string bass skills were a defining aspect of UnexpecT’s incomparable sound.

The album also features synth contributions from former UnexpecT violinist Blaise Borboën, but this is definitely ChaotH’s vision, and while the music shares a lot of its DNA with UnexpecT, it’s also very different. Where UnexpecT was generally very organic sounding in its chaos, Vvon Dogma I is much more mechanical, with the vocals almost entirely wrapped in vocoder layers, giving the already glitch-laden music an additionally synthetic vibe. There’s also a larger focus on guitars, venturing occasionally into djent territory without ever really committing entirely to that direction. It’s a gloriously weird album that really doesn’t sound like much else out there, which makes it that much more special.

3. Gorod – The Orb

Fair warning, I’m about to quote my own review again with regard to Gorod’s brilliant The Orb, because it makes sense to reuse some of the words I’ve already written about this album: “The Orb feels like a culmination of the band’s career arc thus far, taking elements from various parts of the band’s discography and bringing them together in an album that almost feels like a retrospective.”

It’s important to understand that, for as long as I’ve been listening to tech-death, Gorod has been the gold standard in my eyes. Their musical talents and songcraft are absolutely second to no one in an increasingly crowded subgenre, having one without the other is likely to leave a band to flounder in obscurity. Gorod have proven once more with The Orb that they have both.

2. Metallica – 72 Seasons

I saw Metallica live for the first time about a month ago (at the time of this writing). They’ve been my favorite band for as long as I’ve been listening to metal, but for various reasons I had never gotten around to seeing them live, until now. And it was an incredible experience, one that I will never forget.

Anyway, Metallica has been touring in support of their first new album in 7 years. And while it’s generally accepted at this point that Metallica will never outdo their classic first four albums, because they are much older, and much different people, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t writing good music any more. I’ve enjoyed all three of the post St. Anger revival albums (we don’t talk about Lulu), and while the band has taken their time writing and recording each album, it seems to me that these albums seem to be getting better with each release.

72 Seasons is, for a group of guys that are pushing 60, a statement that they still have plenty left to give. Songs like the title track and Lux Aeterna are some of the most vital-sounding tracks that Metallica has written in a very long time. And while 72 Seasons encounters some of the same problems as the two albums that precede it, mostly that the band lets songs go on too long in places when they could easily end those songs a minute or two earlier, the truth is that I really don’t mind. With the band’s advancing age it’s hard to guess how much longer they’re going to keep doing this, and I’ll never turn down the chance to have a little more Metallica in my life.

Seeing them live, though, and seeing everything that they did in the various events set up around the city between their dual tour dates, all the things that they did with their charities and for their fans, made it clear that, after 40+ years they still love doing what they do. It hasn’t always been the smoothest road for them, but they still sound amazing to me, and in the end placing them this high on my list was an easy choice.

1. Majesties – Vast Reaches Unclaimed

I debated quite a bit on my album of the year, and for most of the year found myself vacillating between Gorod and this album, but in the end my love of the work of Tanner Anderson won. For a final time I’m going to quote myself:

“Vast Reaches Unclaimed is, at its heart, a love letter to a highly influential style of music that really doesn’t get played much any more. All the bands that innovated this particular type of melodic death metal, like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, have evolved their sound over the years, and while these albums influenced an entire generation of bands, those bands generally used the sound as more of a starting point. Majesties have captured the core of that sound better than any album I’ve heard in a long, long time, with the artistry inherent to their main projects, and the resulting music is excellent.”

I’ve listened to this album a lot this year, and while I’m sure that the album’s early 2023 release contributed to that, the fact is that this album is also exceptionally good. It sounds a LOT like Obsequiae, which is of course a major selling point for me, but it’s also a fascinating and instructive link in the chain that connects Obsequiae to influence by the likes of In Flames and Dissection, connections that might not necessarily be readily apparent at first glance. And of course, it’s just a really, really good album. Isn’t that what this list is ultimately all about?

And with that, my 2023 list concludes. I have no doubt that at some point I’ll revisit this list and be fascinated and baffled by some picks, and there will undoubtedly be albums that I missed that I’ll be listening to constantly. But for now, that’s the list. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.