As another year draws to a close and I look to other year end lists to see what I might have missed out on, 2023 felt like the most out of the loop I’ve been in a while. Major statements either escaped my notice entirely, didn’t do anything for me, or I was too emotionally drained to give them the investment they needed (looking at you, Sufjan).

And while my first full year as a father has definitely lessened the amount of time I spend listening to new music, (most of my listening was spent getting into Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure for the first time) I loved an awful lot that came out this year. This list might be shorter than the last few years, but that’s no indictment of the number of great releases the year held.

Anyway, here are my favorites from the year.

Spotlights – Alchemy for the Dead

Spotlights has been one of my favorite new bands of the last few years, and everything they’ve done has been excellent. Alchemy for the Dead does nothing to break that streak. This record offers up their trademark brand of dreamy, gazy sludge metal with more variations in sonics and tempo as they’ve ever had. There are flashes of industrial, trip hop, and good ol’ fashioned rock ‘n roll, making for a record that, if it’s not their best, is certainly the most engaging.

Slowdive – Everything Is Alive

No one expected the shoegaze demigods to return with one of the finest works of their career in 2016—even less on the follow up. Everything Is Alive is the rare late-career album that helps to recontextualize their body of work. The shimmering guitars of Souvlaki combine with the dark atmospheres of Just For A Day and the synth loops of Pygmalion, creating one of the group’s finest collections of songs.

Widower – Alone As a God

Former members of HarborLights follow up that group’s excellent debut Isolation Ritual, turning up everything that made that record so great. The songwriting is more captivating, the instrumental work is more intricate, and the heavy bits are so much heavier. There are even some moments of all out hardcore and sludge metal. This might be my most listened-to record of the year.

Underdark – Managed Decline

I only listened to this in the last couple weeks, but it has not let me go. The British post-black metal band offers up a blend of black metal, doom, and post-hardcore that hits hard, with lyrics that might hit even harder. It hits very much like last year’s Pathos from Conjurer, which is great, because I need more of that record. Through the seven tracks, the Nottingham quintet weave blast beats, walls of noise, and on-a-dime dynamic shifts through autobiographical lyrics that are brutal and gut wrenching.

Full of Hell and Nothing – When No Birds Sang

When the collaboration between grindcore stalwarts Full of Hell and shoegaze standard bearers Nothing was announced, no one was quite sure what it would sound like. The end result blends Full of Hell’s scorched-earth sonic assault with Nothing’s dreamy spaciousness, landing somewhere near respectable doomgaze. And, surprisingly, it’s a concept album about 9/11 that somehow manages to cut through the political pandering and meme-ification of the event to capture how harrowing it was to live through.

Agriculture – Agriculture

I’m a big fan of bands that use metal tropes in new ways, so Agriculture’s self-described “ecstatic black metal” is right up my alley. Their self-titled record uses all of the burned-church shrieking, tremolo picking, and blast beats of black metal proper, but warps it around major keys and lyrics about spiritual transcendence.

Fiddlehead – Death is Nothing to Us

On their third record, Fiddlehead stays the course of their brand of full-chested post hardcore that is as hard hitting as it is catchy. However, there’s a level of subtlety here that only comes when a band has come into themselves and lived in it a bit, which the band uses to expertly convey the way grief shifts when you have to keep on living years after loss hits.

Svalbard – The Weight of the Mask

The Bristol UK quintet continues to blur genre lines, combining post hardcore, black metal, shoegaze, screamo, and post rock into a single unit that can’t be easily dissected. The record is significantly heavier than 2020’s When I Die, Will I Get Better, and stares unflinchingly into the eyes of mental illness. According to interviews, vocalist Serena Cherry was almost unable to perform her lyrics without crying, and it’s easy to hear why.

Teenage Wrist – Still Love

Teenage Wrist has been paying homage to the lords of 90s alt rock since their inception. But on Still Love, they branch out from the huge riffs and soft-verse-loud-chorus dynamics of Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, and the Smashing Pumpkins and give the other, less-critic-approved sounds of the decade a chance to shine. There are moments of trip hop, Goo Goo Dolls-esque radio rock, and one divisive moment of rap rock courtesy of 311’s SA Martinez.

Yves Tumor – Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume (or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)

This was my first brush with Yves Tumor, so I’m ignorant of hints of disappointment I’ve seen from longtime fans. But for me, their brand of art pop hit the spot. Elements of industrial, indie rock, post punk, and psychedelic merge under to support spiritual and queer-centric themes in a way I couldn’t escape.

Sisters – Leecheater

Spotlights frontman Mario Quintero joined forces Jason Blackmore of space rock pioneers Molly McGuire, making a record that is more direct than either of their main projects, but still has plenty of space for intricate sonic textures.

Kvelertak – Endling

I’d never spent much time with this self-proclaimed black ‘ n roll outfit, but I was hooked on this album from the get. Black metal has a habit of taking itself too seriously, so it’s refreshing to hear a band that remembers it’s all just rock and roll. You might as well call it Blue Oyster Kvlt.

Portrayal of Guilt – Devil Music

It’s a simple concept: five black metal songs performed with guitars, then the same five songs re-imagined as chamber pieces. But the simplicity doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable.

Gloomer – Embrace the End

Wonderful hook-heavy shoegaze that hits that sweet spot between Slowdive and Deftones. Plus Bill is a huge sweetheart.

Ist Ist – Protagonists

Post punk never really got out of Joy Division’s shadow, and it shouldn’t. Protagonists is the kind of record that reminds you how fruitful moody basslines, robotic drums, and sparse guitars still are.

Narrow Head – Moments of Clarity

The grungegaze stalwarts bolster their already muscular sound with moments of post hardcore, complete with screamed vocals. Probably their best, if you can forgive the awful artwork.

Regana – Desolation’s Flower

This female black metal duo offers up a memorium for the queer martyrs dying in society’s margins, sounding both fierce and fragile as they do it.

Forestlike – Forestlike

Rutabega frontman Joshua Hensley quiets down with an old friend and offers an album of Simon & Garfunkel-esque folk tunes with a modern sensibility.

They Grieve – To Which I Bore Witness

Who ever said intimacy had to be quiet? This sludge duo screams what is usually whispered with amps and cymbals recorded in a way usually reserved for capturing finger picked guitars and barely sung vocals.

Trembler – Folding

It’s sometimes hard to remember that Hum came out of the same scene as Braid and American Football. Folding makes it make sense, combining emo sensibility with massive space rock riffs.

Braids – Euphoric Recall

Montreal’s art poppers are back with their most intricate album yet, continuing their masterful tightrope walk between pop sensibility and avant garde experimentation.

Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit

This kind of progressive death metal requires its creators to be either dead serious or fully lean into the absurdity of the genre. Tomb Mold definitely does the latter. This record is comically heavy and takes absolute delight in its cosmic noodly detours.

Boris & Uniform – Bright New Disease

The Japanese terminal drone/noise/shoegaze/whatever experimentalists join forces with industrial punks Uniform to create an album that’s as scuzzy as it is fun.

Sigur Rós – ÁTTA

Ten years since their last album, Sigur Rós is back with one of the bleakest and tenderest records in their discography. While I was hoping they’d give us more of Kveikur’s heavy gloom, any Sigur Rós is better than none.

Baroness – Stone

Baroness have well established themselves as modern rock heroes for a while now. Stone further cements that reputation with ripping riffs and fist-punching choruses.

 

I know I missed a lot of releases that I might have been expected to love. Some of that is intentional (Spanish Love Songs, The Armed), others are due to ignorance. I’ll likely post a revision in a couple months.

Until then, happy new year.