2023 probably marked the year of my most active engagement with music since first getting into the hobby as a teenager. (In those days, I would listen to half a dozen new bands every day after school; I’m not sure I’m ever getting back to that).
Enough that I felt compelled to assemble the fruits of that exploration into a end of year review — the first I’ve ever done. And yet, after all of that… I do find myself disappointed with my progress. When I conceived this project, I hoped to give at least a cursory listen to all the major metal releases of 2023, skim the top of RateYourMusic or something. But I have other hobbies, and a growing need to dwell in my comfort zone. As a result, there are only 45 albums I feel familiar enough to slot into rankings.
Amusingly, there is something fitting about that disappointment of expectations. Because, as I look through the releases I was most excited for this year, and the reality we were given. So often, I’m left with the impression of “good work, but your past efforts were better.”
The structure of this list works like this. I’ll have an index right after this paragraph, with anchor links to mini-reviews. The albums are grouped into three tiers. Must-listen albums are the outstanding records that I keep coming back to; Noteworthy albums are significant, interesting, or otherwise quite good without quite resonating personally; and Enjoyable albums are just that: neat, pleasant listens I can only sing so much praise for.
Outstanding
- Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite (tech death)
- Xoth - Exogalactic (tech death)
- Mechina - Cenotaph (cyber metal)
- Gorod - The Orb (tech)
- Alkaloid - Numen (prog tech)
- Krallice - Porous Resonance Abyss (prog metal)
- Elvenking - Reader of the Runes - Rapture (power metal)
- GridLink - Coronet Juniper (prog grind)
- Sulphur Aeon - Seven Crowns and Seven Seals (dissodeath)
- 3TEETH - EndEx (industrial metal)
Noteworthy
- Blackbraid - Blackbraid II (black metal)
- The Zenith Passage - Datalysium (tech death)
- Liturgy - 93696 (avant-black)
- Ne Obliviscaris - Exul (prog metal)
- Wormhole - Almost Human
- Fabricant - Drudge To The Thicket
- Dodheimsgard - Black Medium Current
- Krallice - Mass Cathexis 2: The Kinetic Infinite (prog metal)
- Botanist - Selenotrope (experimental “metal”)
- Mental Cruelty - Zwielicht (symphonic death)
- Mercenary - Soundtrack for the End Times (melodeath)
- Vertebra Atlantis - A Dialogue with the Eeriest Sublime
- Snakefeast - In Chaos, Solace
- Hasard - Malivore (dissoblack)
- Sól án varma - Self-titled (dissoblack)
- Aodon - Portraits
- Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab (dissoblack)
- Behold the Arctopus - Interstellar Overtrove (avant-tech)
- Victory Over the Sun - Dance You Monster To My Soft Song (avant-black)
- Stortregn - Finitude
Enjoyable
- Thy Darkened Shade - Liber Lvcifer II: Mahapralaya (prog black)
- Neurotech - Ave Neptune (cyber metal)
- Abstract Void - Forever (synthwave black)
- Wayfarer - American Gothic
- Psicosfera - Summa Negativa (dissoblack)
- Spirit Possession - ...Of the Sign (experimental trad black)
- Humanity’s Last Breath - Ashen (tech death) Cynic - Ascension Codes
- Thantifaxth - Hive Mind Narcosis (dissoblack)
- Psygnosis - Mercury (prog metal)
- Sovreign - Rewired (cyber metal)
- Aara - Tirade III: Nyx (black)
- Brii - Ultima Ancestral Comum (avant-black)
- Mesarthim - Arrival (atmoblack)
- Afterbirth - In But Not Of
- Spectral Lore - 13 Days (prog black)
- Aevangelist - “Simulacra Retrospectrae” (abyssal death)
Outstanding
Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite
From the pupa to a nymph
Molting each stage of our lives ’til cold and stiff
Now thriving terrasites, dramatic shift
Now as a parasite humanity persists
I would understate to say I’m a fan of Cattle Decapitation’s modern efforts. I was introduced to The Anthropocene Extinction by a review who claimed to have listened to Monolith of Inhumanity daily for years, and when I finally heard them, it didn’t strike me as exagerration. Once Death Atlas released, I wouldn’t shut up about it for a month. When I had to decide on a favorite album of all time, it nearly made the cut, being exceeded by only a single other record.
So, how does Terrasite stand up to such an impressive oeuvre?
I don’t dispute that Terrasite is some of the best work the band has put out. I’ve spent about six months, given it hundreds of listens, and still love it. “Solastalgia” genuinely made me cry. “Just Another Body” is a 10 minute epic and probably the best closer I’ve heard from them.
Yet my rhetoric is plainly winding up for a “but”, isn’t it? Paradoxically, I think Terrasite is better than Death Atlas, yet I considered the latter among my favorite albums of all time and the former wouldn’t even make top ten. Why?
Death Atlas makes me feel things. There’s a despair haunting that album, and a beauty limned in the fiery immolation of the planet. It stares unblinking at the horror of climate change, and mourns. Smoldering, moody, gothic.
In way, Cattle Decap have the curse of mastery; DA was an inarguably step up from TAE, but where can they go from there? What room to improve is left once you make a masterpiece? Terrasite is a subtler improvement, enough that I was underwhelmed on my first listen.
Amusingly, “where is there to go?” applies equally well to their lyrical themes; what stories can you tell when you ended the world with such bombast? The very first track is all but a direct answer “We’re not going anywhеre / We disseminate and descend, our corruption has no end.”
Look at the album cover, if you can bare to — Terrasite portrays a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has mutated into insectoid forms, the ash that burried simply a chrysalis for a cruel transformation. (It makes my cool reception a bit more puzzling; I am after all famous for my taste for bugs. Indeed, I generally prefer fantasy to reality, and DA is anchored to realism.)
But there’s more than lyrics to these albums. DA did interesting things — dissonant melodies, atmosphere, wonderful use of cleans. I’m a fiend for novelty, for music that sparkles and flourishes, and Terrasite is pedastrian. The most interesting moment is a mere few seconds of oddly crunchy bass in “The Storm Upstairs”.
A friend of mine, far more knowledgable about music, said this album “feels a lot closer to a”standard” death metal album being played at tech death speeds. ...it felt a bit more streamlined and focused on being aggressive.”
My take on the best album of 2023 is five hundred words of me saying it’s uninteresting and doesn’t escape the shadow of its predecessor — not a great sign for the year to come, is it?
But I, I’m just a body
Alive but rotting
A storm of flies that hides behind these eyes
Xoth - Exogalactic
A man of myth shall reach the summit
For no human has ever done it
Slithering harem, strange wine
Life and death, a void designed
Immortal monument
A sacred testament
Gleaming with majesty
Atlas for us all
Mechina - Cenotaph
Honor this day, ancient heart
Praise this humane ritual
This grand hunt has devolved into an orgy of Blood
Blades cracking.
Flesh rending
Weak points found
Watch as the rain transcends into blood
Let it pour
I have claimed my name
Bloodstained, I fade into this new age
A moment of calm
A shadow against blue skies
Only followed by trails of fire
Take me away
Gorod - The Orb
If the words fly away but the writings remain
Are we all that prone to the fear of forgetting?
Some of us try to keep safe every little thing we made
But delight seems to belong to those with short memory
May the filth of your soul finally come to light
The fact of being in mourning does not make you rightFor when the sun rises, the stars go out
And it is not by burning the forests
Or flooding the lands with your tears
That you will find consolation
Alkaloid - Numen
God! are you there?
For we come knocking at your door
Numen
Our cage of yore
Rends and roars
As we come crashing through your door
Here under stars of wonder
Their beauty pulled us under
A freeing force is leading
Towards the heart of meaning
Krallice - Porous Resonance Abyss
Elvenking - Reader of the Runes - Rapture
One day the devil seeped into the room
Said: “Let’s make a deal”
His name the parchment signed a silverseal
You’re cursed!
Come along
Come along
Cry your funeral song
And testify your will as you depart
Come along and when your ashes will disperse
They’ll bring a never-ending curse
GridLink - Coronet Juniper
Salt the earth to watch it burn
The fallacy of discriminate retribution
The retched coherent veneer
That wraps perdition, in justice and consolation
Bound to each other, but we cannot have
A shared moment only glancing regret
Snow fall drapes the ocean
Separate from the shared embrace
Sulphur Aeon - Seven Crowns and Seven Seals
As we become as the great old ones
devoid of morals, beyond good and evil.
As the earth is set aflame in a reign of ecstasy and fear...
Revelling in the joy of ultimate demise,
as concurrently we burn and drown!
Seven celestial majesties -
Seven malevolent royalties
Seven planets, seven signs -
Seven balsphemies entwined
Seven crowns, seven lords -
Seven abominations roar
Seven crowns, seven seals -
Seven spells will end our reign!
3TEETH - EndEx
I pledge allegiance to my own corruption
Preserving my freedom of self-destruction
I want to be the one with the most damage
You can’t tell me how to live on my
Slum planet!
// i generally prefer EndEx to METAWAR, but the highs are different. METAWAR was mid aside from the two closer tracks, “BLACKOUT” and “THE FALL” which were beautiful, somber, cathartic standouts. What does EndEx have to compare? “Drift”? Which is a good song, but it’s placement invites comparison, and it simply doesn’t stack up.
Credit where it’s due, when it comes to bonus cover tracks, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is much better than “PUMPED UP KICKS”. I didn’t recognize the former as a cover at first, found it to be a fitting if oddly upbeat last track. The latter is so off-tone that I always skip it.
The only thing here built to last
Is the engine that turns your world to trash
My domain is the future pain
Light your path like a moth to the flame