What were your albums of the year?

10) Incantation- Unholy Deification

9) Cattle Decapitation-Terrasite

8) Tsjuder- Helvegr

7) None- Inevitable

6) Vargrav-The Nighthold

5) Vastum- Inward to Gethsemane

4) Gravesend- Gowanus Death Stomp

3) Ringare- Of Momentous Endless Night

2) Moonlight Sorcery- Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle

1) Panopticon- The Rime of Memory

I listened to three full new albums this year

Roger Waters - Dark Side of the Moon Redux
The Electric Mayhem - The Muppets Mayhem
Killer Mike - Michael


Of those three Killer Mike is my favorite by far despite being kind of let down by it due to high expectations from how much I love his previous album and work with Run the Jewels.

Outside of a handful of artists I follow closely Im generally 10-20 years behind on music. Will have a better idea of my favorite 2023 album in 2044.

2023 seemed like a down year for me for new music. Probably a lot to do with a glut of albums getting pushed out post pandemic, and artists spending 2021/2022 getting back on the road to make money instead of sitting down to write and record music. I couldn’t even come up with 10, so I’m just doing my top 5.

1. Jason Isbell - Weathervanes (winner by a mile)
2. Lori McKenna - 1988
3. The Steel Woods - On Your Time
4. Charles Wesley Godwin - Family Ties
5. The Turnpike Troubadours- Cat in the Rain

My top:
Mammoth WVH - "Mammoth II"
Def Leppard - "Drastic Symphonies"

Also listened to:
Metallica - "72 Seasons"

Queens Of The Stone age - In Times New Roman
Neil Young - Before and After
Foo Fighters - But Here We Are
Brad - In The Moment That You're Born

Honorable mentions to Ghost Of Vroom and Ben Harper, but neither quite manage to feel "albums of the year" worthy. Those listed above are more solid start-to-finish, to me at least.

The best albums I heard this year:
Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds
OMD – Bauhaus Staircase
Noel Gallagher – Council Skies

Also quite good:
Peter Gabriel – I/O
Smashing Pumpkins – ATUM
Metallica – 72 Seasons
Depeche Mode – Memento Mori
Foo Fighters – But Here We Are
Mammoth WVH – Mammoth II

Decent:
Yes – Mirror To The Sky
Steven Wilson – The Harmony Codex
Blur – The Ballad Of Darren

Disappointing:
U2 – Songs Of Surrender
Explosions In The Sky – End
Duran Duran – Danse Macabre

Best box sets/Reissues/Live albums:
Billy Idol – Billy Idol Expanded Edition
Sonic Youth – Live In Brooklyn 2011
Liam Gallagher – Knebworth ‘22
Genesis – BBC Broadcasts

Queens of the Stone Age: In Times New Roman
Metallica: 72 Seasons (even though most songs on it dull out with repeated listens, there's enough here to go keep going back to).
The Hives: The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons - this is their best album.

Honorable Mention
Dempsey Kit’s Heart album. It’s an HM because it might not be a real album. Came out randomly around Feb, was on Spotify for about a month, then disappeared from everywhere but a casual mention on the Metal archives and a random YouTube video containing full album. Some say they are out of Russia, some say it’s AI, some say it was never meant to be released.

Favorite Albums 2024
Suffocation - Hymns from the Apocrypha
Body Void - Atrocity Machine
Afterbirth - In But Not Of
Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
Burial Hordes - Ruin
Sunroots - The Unfailing Rope
Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite
Sanguisugabogg- Homicidal Ecstasy
Obituary - Dying of Everything
Dying Fetus - Make them Beg for Death
Sorry - Self Inflicted Razor Cutting
Crypta - Shades of Sorrow
Year of the Knife - No Love Lost

I forgot None released an album, I’ll need to give it a listen. Also never got around to listening to new Panopticon.

Nice, these two were favorites of mine last year as well. What a cool band Moonlight Sorcery is, I've been following them since their first EP came out last year. They sound like if Yngwie Malmsteen was the guitarist in Emperor. Great melodic, neo-classical guitar work with cool black metal vocals.

In no particular order, other favorites of mine from 2023:

- Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

- Malokarpatan - Vertumnus Caesar

- Immortal - War Against All

- Kvelertak - Endling

- Hellripper - Warlocks Grim and Withered Hags

- Ghost - Pantomime (an all covers EP but I enjoyed it)

I know I'm forgetting something, but I'll add anything else I think of.

Reissue of the year for me was Nuclear War Now's re-release of Beherit's 1993 black metal classic Drawing Down the Moon. Great sounding vinyl, gorgeous gatefold sleeve, massive 12" x 12" booklet, and the attention to detail is fantastic, they replicated the misprint on the original label instead of correcting it, and instead of making a copy of the original sleeve, which often results in lost detail and color issues in many re-releases, the label went back to the original NASA photo that was used and recreated the cover, if anything this cover looks even clearer and detailed than the original pressing, you rarely see that!

Man, I tried listening to the new Panopticon, after hearing so many rave reviews about it, but just couldn't get into it. Tons of talent for sure, but maybe you just need to be in the right frame of mind for a proper listen. I wanted to like it but it just didn't speak to me.

Only new ones listened to

72 seasons- metallica
Phantomime- Ghost

I didn't think 2023 was a particularly strong year for music, but not terrible either.

These were my favorites, in no order...
(corresponding album covers collage below)

Osees - Intercepted Message
Slow Pulp - Yard
Raze Regal & White Denim Inc.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Petrodragonic Apocalypse
Royal Blood - Back to the Water Below
The Paper Kites - At the Roadhouse
The Armed - Perfect Saviors
Jason Isbell - Weathervanes
The Revivalists - Pour It Out Into The Night
Queens Of The Stone Ave - In Times New Roman...
Murlocs - Calm Ya Farm
Daisy Jones & The 6 - Aurora
Rival Sons - Darkfighter/Lightbringer
Metric - Formentera II
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - The Silver Cord (extended mix)
OMD - Bauhaus Staircase