Tom Morgan's Top Albums of 2023
So I’ll preface this list with the same disclaimer as I did last year; my listening tastes don’t fall in any one genre, so my ultimate list of favorite albums of the year only contains a couple of those included here. But, it’s an absolute thrill to get the chance to rave about some of the heavy albums from 2023 that have captured my imagination. I’m using ‘heavy’ here because there’s a lot of subgenre jumping in the following feature. From sludge metal to hardcore to grindcore, I almost wish I could do 20 mini-lists covering all these different styles. However, that would be insanely solipsistic and I’d go insane trying to come up with that many synonyms for “punishing” and “brutal”.
Anyway, thanks for checking out my list and also massive thanks to Invisible Oranges for all the work they’ve done this year. Music journalism’s in a strange place right now, but these guys are always open to ideas and are doing all they can to help preserve the medium. Long may they continue!
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Honorable Mentions:
20. Concrete Caveman - Feral (Strange Mono, USA)
19. Burner - It All Returns to Nothing (Church Road Records, UK)
18. Lamp of Murmuur - Saturnian Bloodstorm (Argento/Not Kvlt Records, USA)
17. Wallowing - Earth Reaper (Church Road Records, UK)
16. Sunrot - The Unfailing Rope (Prosthetic Records, USA)
15. Mutoid Man - Mutants (Sargent House, USA)
14. Johnny Booth - Moments Elsewhere (Independent, USA)
13. Jesus Piece - …So Unknown (Century Media Records, USA)
12. Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit (20 Buck Spin, Canada)
11. End - The Sin of Human Frailty (Closed Casket Activities, USA)
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I love the latest EYES album because one; it rocks and two; it reminds me of noughties noise metal merchants like Engineer and Burnt By The Sun. It’s technically a noise rock album, of the nihilistic Cherubs and Unsane-variety, but christ it’s a heavy one. Full of dark grooves, drop tuned to hell riffs and beautifully nasty vocals, this is dark and sardonic metal of the highest caliber. Here’s hoping the band gain more of a following beyond their home country Denmark, which isn’t exactly the first place that comes to mind when you think of ugly noise metal.
Listen here.
In my interview with Hellripper’s James McBain earlier this year, I said that “few bands’ music will make you pull this website’s titular gesture more than Hellripper”. This is metal at its most exhilaratingly entertaining; grandiose thrash and speed metal telling tales of Scottish Highland folklore. If that doesn’t at least intrigue you, you don’t like metal. It’s both a total barn-burner and a resplendent, accomplished step forward for the one-man project. A timeless scorcher of an album.
Listen here.
It’s hard to explain why I dig Infinite Psychic Depths so much. It’s not the most technically brilliant death metal album of the year, nor is it the gnarliest, or the weirdest. It seems to sit in some personal goldilocks zone; the production, riffs, atmospherics, artwork and tone are all exactly what I want from a (relatively) straightforward death metal album. I guess I’m susceptible to anything released on Relapse. Oh yeah, and it came out the day after my birthday, so maybe I was in an especially receptive mood when I first heard it!
Listen here.
I write IO’s grindcore roundup features, so every year I enjoy/subject myself to more grind than is good for anyone’s sanity. The genre tilts from the sublime to the ridiculous, often encompassing both polarities at once. Rotten Sound’s eighth studio album Apocalypse is the genre at its most accomplished: eighteen crystalline, whiplash-inducing ragers that are as short and viciously-effective as their one or two word titles. I’m a nerd for song structuring and Rotten Sound are masters at finding surprising new avenues through which to burn through their sub-ninety-second run times. Veteran grindcore that’s as potent as it is subtly-artistic.
Listen here.
The most recently-released album on my list, I fell completely under RAT WARS’ spell the second I heard it. It’s simultaneously an industrial rock, groove metal, techno and synthpop album; a monstrous machine built out of cold textures, harsh beats and emotive vocals. Capped off by two brilliant collaborative tracks (including a seamless stylistic fusion with Justin Broadrick on the punishing “CHILDREN OF SORROW”) this muscular and seductive collection is hands-down my favorite ‘goth’ album of the year.
Listen here.
Not an album I thought would be in my top five of the year. This epic collection of sludge/doom metal fits, like the Outer Heaven album did for death metal, right into my personal goldilocks zone. I love it when bands in these genres play at a slightly-quicker than trudging pace (Thou being the perfect example), one that’s got a real sense of cutthroat momentum even as it plows through lengthy runtimes as though wrapped in chains. Tracks on Obsession Destruction such as “The Gates Have Closed and They Will Never Open” pull this off with aplomb; an energy that the Massachusetts band use to journey to some devastating emotional depths.
Listen here.
I mentioned earlier my predilection for anything released on Relapse. While Desiderium wasn’t released on the venerable label, it just feels like it should have. For a band from Brooklyn, they don’t sound at all urbane, exuding instead earthy southern aggression like their clear influences Mastodon and Baroness. This is music to get lost in a swamp too, cutting through vines whilst fighting skunk apes. Packed with great songs that are heavy as they are melodic and always avoid predictable paths, this couldn’t be any more up my street if it tried.
Listen here.
The former industrial cities of the UK have produced half of the great doom metal bands – Black Sabbath, My Dying Bride, Godflesh, Iron Monkey to name a few. You can add Pigs x7 to this lineage, who hail from the Northern port city of Newcastle. Their third (and best) full-length Land of Sleeper is an especially fun and accessible example of metal in the Sabbathian vein, full of endless huge riffs (“Big Rig”) and bouncy grooves (“Mr Medicine”). There’s even some creepy experimentation on “The Weatherman” and “Ball Lightning” that suggests thrilling new avenues for a band that have become a surprising cult favorite here in the UK.
Listen here.
An album I didn’t think its creators had in them yet. Pupil Slicer blew up on the post-COVID UK metal scene, playing an especially caustic brand of mathcore. It was fun, but super raw. Just two years later, the band returned with this prog-math conceptual epic Blossom that completely knocked me for six. The math-y angularity is brilliantly-executed, but it’s the moments of crystal-clear hyper metal featuring frontwoman Katie Davies singing that live longest in the memory. The title track of this album is in contention for my favorite metal song of the year; a brilliantly-structured six minute epic of cosmic grandeur that maintains incredible momentum. What a great band Pupil Slicer are turning into.
Listen here.
At the risk of a theme emerging here; this is another album I did not expect to fall in love with. I was a moderate fan of Incendiary’s previous LP and saw them at a festival in 2022, but had no idea how much the band would level up on this year’s Change The Way You Think About Pain. A masterclass in dark, bludgeoning metalcore, this immaculately-produced collection overflows with brash New York charisma and riffs and breakdowns that could quake a tenement’s foundations. It also packs an impressive intellectual punch, boasting an adroit lyrical thesis that looks at social and political malaise, Eastern spirituality and humanity’s inability to confront pain. My favorite album of the year, regardless of genre.
Listen here.
