Colin Dempsey's Top Albums of 2023
Upon reflection, 2022 was a solid year for heavy metal, albeit with muted peaks. That isn’t to say the music was bad, just that when I look at my list of favorite albums from last year, I’m left bereft of the lasting impact that many of my prized albums from 2022 had. This is a personal quibble, but one that 2023 has rectified by being an unfairly good year for metal. It’s been a treadmill of releases, with each month increasing the incline and pacing of said exercise device. New albums were catching my attention as late as December, which was a blessing and a curse. Musicians could not stop releasing phenomenal music, but my ultimate year-end list was a pain to solidify as a result. Woe is me.
It’s also been my most stereotypically “metal” year on a personal level as, by the time fall rolled around, my ears and brain rejected nearly everything that was not metal. I bought cheugy yet well-performing over-the-ear headphones, I lamented that the death metal I was listening to wasn’t deathly enough; I replayed the Dark Souls series, and I found myself thinking similarly to Laster; I craved blast beats. I was, for all intents and purposes, metal-pilled. When I wasn’t swamped with new releases, I spent most of my time reconnecting with the basics—Death, Darkthrone, Immortal, and Bathory. “Basics” is given with the utmost adoration, as these acts laid the foundation for my tastes or revealed my preferences. Spending time with their discographies has been immensely satisfying, as I found their DNA in many of my favorite releases this year. Or, I hungered for music so antithetical to them that they escape comparison.
That being, 2023 has been the strongest year of the decade for music, both metal and otherwise. Though I just lamented how few non-metal projects I listened to once it stopped being appropriate to wear jorts outside, the albums that managed to squeak through my hesher mindset stayed with me. I would often hear Yaeji or Nourished by Time in the back of my mind; billy woods’ refusal to attend soundcheck replayed on a near-daily basis, and Tzusing’s dive into masculinity in China refused to loosen its grip on me. And I cannot forget how Sprain’s The Lamb as Effigy hung over me like a vulture throughout autumn. Sadly, none of those albums have riffs, so I have no interest in musing about them here.
Here are the albums I’ll more than happily speak on.
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Honorable Mentions:
20. Dawn Ray’d – To Know the Light (Prosthetic Records, United Kingdom)
19. Moonlight Sorcery – Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle (Avantgarde Music, Finland)
18. Agriculture – Agriculture (The Flenser, United States)
17. Dymna Lotva – Зямля Пад Чорнымі Крыламі: Кроў (The Land Under The Black Wings: Blood) (Prophecy Productions, Belarus)
16. Nox Eternus– Eternal Night (Reaping Scythe Records, United States)
15. Ὁπλίτης – Τρωθησομένη (Independent, China)
14. Blut Aus Nord – Disharmonium - Nahab (Debemur Morti Productions, France)
13. Panopticon – The Rime of Memory (Bindrune Recordings, United States)
12. Dodheimsgard – Black Medium Current (Peaceville, Norway)
11. Kostnatění – Úpal (Willowtip, United States)
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The Intergalactic Gorebong of Deathpot is not the best front-to-back album of 2023, but it’d be asinine to ignore that it contains some of the year’s best songs. “Zombie Party Rockers,” “Blunt Smoke Suffocation,” and “CHOPPED 2 PIECES” rise above the album’s limiting factors (the drum recording being an acquired taste) as party death metal. Imagine Cannibal Corpse and Municipal Waste collaborating, and you’re halfway there—You just need a metric ton of weed to finish the job.
Listen here.
When taken at face value, there’s little that distinguishes Vanwa’s debut album from countless other black metal records whose influences end around 1995. Well, there is the dungeon synth interpolation of “Scarborough Fair.” Then there’s the fact that every tremolo-picked riff and blast beat is earned, marking specific climaxes instead of acting as Vanwa’s flesh and blood. Call it “intelligent pacing,” if you will.
There are also gorgeous folk segments that introduce “Through Forests and Mountains.” Yet, even all that doesn’t get across Vanwa’s allure. Truth is, the album doesn’t care to be epic, grandiose, or even dark; it only wants to be intimate. It’s a one-man project by and for one man, and it’s like gazing into the mind of someone who only communicates through Paysage d’Hiver and Windr tributes.
Listen here.
Trespasser provided one of my strongest interviews this year and reaffirmed that bands such as themselves and Dawn Ray’d don’t just succeed because they pair black metal with anarchism, but because they act with genuine empathy. They build communities. They put their money where their mouths are. Fittingly, ἈΠΟΚΆΛΥΨΙΣ is a Molotov cocktail and is delivered with as much care as a weapon like this should be.
Listen here.
Ayloss’ second album under the Auriferous Flame mantle should not be a surprise for anyone who listened to last year’s The Great Mist Within, but what is surprising is how adventurous he is even when playing within stricter blackened-thrash confines. This is black metal for the soul: hearty, riff-filled, frosted goodness. There are plenty of elementary black metal bands out there, but none make the elementary as exciting and appealing as Ayloss.
Listen here.
Whereas Auriferous Flame revered black metal, M. uses it as a vessel for pain on Saturnian Bloodstorm. Though not as inventive as the goth rock cross-pollination that was Submission and Slavery, this redirection is essential in that, were Saturnian Bloodstorm to speak a language other than Norwegian black metal, it’d ring hollow. Through it, M. reclaimed a physical fortitude that only cold, unfeeling, and Immortal-esque metal can provide.
Listen here.
American Gothic, for the most part, sharpens its predecessor A Romance With Violence’s rough edges, honing its dusty riffs and post-metal affectations. Every aspect is more dialed in, which is a boring point of praise if you’re unfamiliar with Wayfarer, but a high point of praise if you’re already sold by their dilapidated vision of the west through the black metal’s guise. Here, they hunker down into their vision to reduce the friction between their composite pieces. It’s their most satisfying album, partially because of how fluidly the pieces finally come together but primarily because of their atmospheric control. They are now masters of the set piece, with tracks like “To Enter My House Justified” being among the best stories they’ve told.
Listen here.
This arrived much too late in the year. Blut, Milch und Thränen’s bright tones and drunken abandon better suit late summer nights than they do winter winds. Oh well! Nevertheless, Kvelgeyst possess the same ecstatic take on black metal that Agriculture aim for, but take it to less inhibited states. This brings about a charm present in their laissez-faire song structures, bouncy rhythms, and welcoming of black metal’s vileness in a place it seemingly shouldn’t belong. Blut, Milch und Thränen is almost too weird and brazen to be traditionally classified as black metal, but the inebriated bard at its core reminds you that black metal was originally weird and brazen.
Listen here.
HEALTH have been hiding their power level since 2019’s VOL4 ⸬ SLAVES OF FEAR by releasing collaborative albums and contributing to video game soundtracks. Sure, they were still making good music, but it didn’t hit quite the same. Anticipation was growing that their next studio album would bang, and evidently, all they needed was for someone to let them bang. RAT WARS is simultaneously the culmination of their pop arc and their open embrace of industrial metal. It’s as stylized as The Matrix and as edgy as Sasuke Uticha, but it goes down so smoothly that you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Listen here.
The fact that The Enduring Spirit gained recognition by publications outside the metal space speaks not to Tomb Mold finding a way to make death metal palatable but of how their death metal evokes feelings outside of its usual repertoire. They earn the comparisons made to Cynic and Death because they’re similarly curious about the human soul. The Enduring Spirit, much like Symbolic and Focus, propels you to think outside of yourself, much like how Tomb Metal’s death metal exists in an ecosystem of dream pop and progressive rock. It’s poetic and graceful, even in its heaviest moments.
“Nothing is free to those who shield their hearts. All is free to those who bear their hearts.”
Listen here.
Listen, black metal dudes can be reactionary and traditionalist. They can shake their fists at globalism and commercialism and then promote the idea that the only life worth living is in a cabin in the woods with your head tucked between your legs. It’s passe, so thank god for Thantifaxath. Hive Mind Narcosis is black metal for the hyper-commercial age, an album that contends with sensory overload, subconscious drives, addiction, and escapism. It’s a shapeshifter that reflects and distorts how market forces contort us and vice versa, often through inscrutable means. Albums such as this, ones that encapsulate your own lofty ideals of what music can and should do, need to be cherished.
Listen here.
