LISTMANIA 2023: A YEAR-END LIST FROM WIL CIFER

(This week we begin presenting year-end lists from NCS writers other than Andy Synn, who finished his NCS list week last Friday. To begin this week, here’s a year-end Top 20 list from Wil Cifer.)

Given the world’s present apocalyptic trajectory this year’s Top 20 Metal Albums list might be the last of these lists I make. The tone of my listening this year shifted in a more nihilistic direction. I listened to more death metal this year, which might have less to do with becoming acclimated to living in Tampa and more to do with celebrating death as an inevitable end to this cycle of life. Metal has always been my therapeutic outlet. Even before I was formally diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, I used Doom metal to lean into my depressive episodes. Now I am more intentional with this ritual, so there might be a decent dose of doom ahead.

After buying the “Age of Quarrel” cassette back in 1986, I’ve been a fan of hardcore, so listening to it takes me back to my early teen years when life was less complicated, as the world around me became more complex, thus accounting for the increase of hardcore on this year’s list. However I am still adhering to the mission statement of previous years and tightening my definition of metal, so this excludes many albums that are less metallic versions of hardcore such as Gel, death pose, 1476, Rid of Me, and Final Gasp. All albums I highly recommend if you are into punk / hardcore.

Given my taste for darker music, and being a large proponent here at No Clean Singing of more goth or post-punk-leaning metal bands, I am not including artists that are merely metal-adjacent, so I have also excluded albums by artists such as Temple of Angels, Troller, Mykur, Grave Pleasures, Throat, and False Fed, who all released wonderful albums that embraced dark tense moods but are not metal. However, if your tastes divert toward this direction then I implore you to give those a listen as well.

The following albums that comprise my Top 20 Metal albums of 2023 are ranked in order of what I listened to the most this year. I listened to and reviewed for various blogs 467 new albums this year, 247 of those being metal albums, so 52 percent, which makes these albums the top 8 percent of the metal I listened to this year.

Rather than just write blurbs about them that are just abbreviated reviews, I have decided this year to focus more on how the albums made me feel, and the lyrics that resonated with me. All too often vocals these days are just an obligatory layer of screaming to create the illusion of a narrative voice for the songs. A few albums here might be more guilty of that than others; either way, I am focusing on the messages that resonated with me, the reasons why these songs inspired repeat listens rather than just being a file I deleted after listening to it enough to write a review.

So here are the albums that resonated with my inner darkness this year making them My Top 20 Metal Albums of 2023.

 

20-Left to Suffer – “Feral”

Falling asleep trying to fucking die It’s been a while since I’ve felt alive
Feeling the weight of my world crashing down around me
It’s in my head, and I feel like I am fucking drowning

This kind of metalcore is not normally my thing, yet this album turns back the clock to the early days of nu-metal when I was a trash basket who sucked down any drug I could get. The disturbing atmosphere here sets them apart and reminds me how self-loathing can lead to lashing out at those around you. Sometimes it pays to be reminded that you too are eligible to feel like that.

 

 

19-Outer Heaven – “Infinite Psychic Depths”

Determined to dive into leaping waves of self / the body will depart from vestigial connections
Psychic damage now contours miles of mind / faces lengthen into faces and unify

This album speaks to those afternoons when the gummies are kicking in harder than expected, and I switch consciousness with the cat to find their thoughts are as chaotic and netherworldy as this brand of death metal.

 

 

18-Orphans of Dusk – “Spleen”

How cruel the jest, to live depressed / the circus is over, it’s time to go home

This album took me to mid-’90s, after Type O Negative inspired bands to break out the black hair dye. It was a time when depression was a high-functioning luxury to romanticize, rather than dependent on If I remembered to take my meds or not.

 

 

17-Sanguisugabogg – “Homicidal Ectasy”

Relish my selfish act / my teeth pierce through your flesh/ afraid there is no going back
Find an opening

After too many pre-work-out drinks begin to induce a post-gym mania.You find that horror movies can be therapeutic, they can also become a form of pornograqphy, I fully endorse them for both reasons. This album co-signs these ideas for me.

 

 

16-Portrayal of Guilt – “Devil Music”

Why won’t this end? / Everything I touch falls to pieces
Each day is more painful than the last / Before I rest, I pray for death
But I keep waking , nails to my face, breath of decay, slowly I ache

When achieving mental health goals, grading is on a sliding scale. I no longer have suicidal thoughts, instead I look forward to the end of the world, this album served as soundtrack to my meditations on this.

 

 

15-Hexvessel – “Polar Veil”

The sun sinks below the earth
Each aching minute the sky grows darker
I pull my body to the soil, the moon is leaking underneath an ocean

Watching the sunset as I walk the beach is one of the only moments of peace inside my head, this album had a similar effect, the hypnotic black metal drone and chanted vocal melodies, were soothing, though an unexpected turn from this project.

 

 

14-Obituary – “Dying of Everything”

You live in the absence of thought and find no one cares
I see the eyes of blind men defined by common law

As I follow the current events of the world unraveling, I try to avoid the news and just watch podcasts by European Political Analysts, this was typically the album that best fit my mood after doing this. Having been a fan since 1989, the familiarity of sound provides both catharsis and comfort.

 

 

13-Cattle Decapitation – “Terrasite”

And this is what humans are
Insignificant imbeciles Adrift in a sea of stars

This is a concept album of sorts. I often found it reflected my own pondering thoughts regarding today’s society and the human race’s contributions to the bigger picture. The music fits the mood of the topic and provides the proper ambience to dwell on these bigger issues.

 

 

12-Fange – “Privation”

Born to betray, Infamy will suit me perfectly, better to leave the ship
Rather a rat than a martyr … (translated from French)

My first listen to this album was while waiting for a hurricane to hit. The dystopian feel of their increasingly industrial crunch fit perfectly. The ugliness it churns with serves as a suitable soundtrack for venturing out into the “real” world.

 

 

11-Mouth For War – “Bleed Yourself”

Muted colors, grasping at your line when you’re but a shape
Haullucinations, the things that seems to make me feel safe

If this were My Top 20 albums (to listen to en route to the gym) list, this one would be number one. It helps me cope with the ever-increasing prices of C4 at Wawa, and the album’s dense thrashing chugs ready my brain to get some dopamine going.

 

 

10-Svalbard – “The Weight of the Mask”

I am too depressed to show you, How depressed I really am
It feels beyond expression, The weight of the mask buries me into silence

All too often albums dealing with depression only deal with the Hollywood depiction of it. Finally, someone gets it and can convey the worst of it which is going through life pretending you are functioning like everyone else. Doing this to hardcore makes sense, as depression turned inward comes out sideways as aggression.

 

 

9-Wayfarer – “American Gothic”

Count your blessings now, Lay your children down
You’re spending others’ blood..,Well
You’ll pay your own

I was expecting this to be the album when they became the Black Metal version of Orville Peck. Not this time, instead it’s black metal for the days Floridians pull out snow boots because it’s 60 degrees. The gray clouds of those days fit this album well.

 

 

8-Fuming Mouth – “Last Day of Sun”

dont want to be here anymore with any of you
I’d like to leave this place behind because there is no forever
There is only now and I’d like to forget you and say goodbye

This album captures how unpleasant I am without caffeine. There is still enough of the atmosphere from the nightmare I woke up from lingering in the chords, while sunlight begins pounding into my temples like their double bass.

 

 

7-Horrendous – “Ontological Mysterium”

We’ll pluck out your eyes
To bring new vision
Divine Consciousness liquefied

This album co-signs my distrust of medical marijuana, and embraces the worst rabbit holes of Reptillian conspiracy realism I might float into on a cloud of my misgivings. The killer guitar solos can be grounding, there is something to be said for sweep arpeggios.

 

 

6-Will Haven – “VII”

Let me show you, How It’s supposed to feel
Fuck resentment I’ll show you malice

It’s nice sometimes to just have something light-hearted to bob your head along to. Light-hearted is relative, these grooves are a great deal of fun no matter my mood.

 

 

5-Mansion – “Second Death”

You have fantasies of freedom and love,
but those thoughts didn’t come from above

Doom metal that sounds like something the Family could have listened to at the Spahn Ranch. This year I’ve been into studying the Process Church of Final Judgment and found this album a fitting soundtrack for those studies.

 

 

4-Downfall of Gaia – “Silhouettes of Disgust”

Flickering shadows, shimmering lights
shrouded in darkness, I remain numb

I would rather hear black metal express real pain that I can believe they are experiencing than use occult terms they have no comprehension of to sound evil. This album feels real, I can relate to that. There is no such thing as evil, but it’s fun to pretend when you’re a teenager, this is black metal for thinking adults.

 

 

3-The Lion’s Daughter – “Bath House”

The world is done, it cannot wait

Some albums remind me of horror movies, just from the erotic brutality they conjure, this one feels like it’s the soundtrack to a horror movie that has yet to be made. I find this to be very inspiring, as most days I feel like I’m in the middle of an origin story.

 

 

2-Harm’s Way – “Common Suffering”

The violent current, Swept me away
It pulled me down beneath the surface
Eager to breathe, The calm sets in
At peace this time beneath the surface

You might assume this album would be another pre-workout great hits collection. But there is more to it than that. Much like this band’s lead barker, I too am seen as a big scary guy, but I like wrapping my cats up in blankets and making them watch serial killer documentaries with me. Nobody ever thinks that I like snuggling with cats too, just like they think this band is just brutal breakdowns, no they have feelings just like anyone else.

 

 

1-Frozen Soul – “Glacial Domination”

As your soul is escaping
Redesign
Redefine
A flesh shrine
A morbid effigy

So far in this list I have shared with you my daily struggles along with my hopes and dreams. What I have not opened up to you about is how most of the time I escape this world by playing a never-ending game of Dungeons & Dragons in my head. It’s a story that has been going now for over thirty-five years. This band understands creating the world you want to live in out of fantasies in your head. How much snow do they get in Texas? Who cares when your heart is a tundra. Every chug and gallop made me a believer in this winter wonderland as I was sweating my ass off in Tampa.