At last, the finish line has been reached for my recapitulations and rankings of my favourite albums of 2023.
That being said, there's still heaps of music released in 2023 that I haven't managed to properly cover here, haven't spent enough time with or have yet to listen to so I might still keep doing reviews on albums from the past year after this, we shall see!
2023 was a bit of a weird one for me and felt somewhat uneventful at times but the barrage of quality music being put out has been both ceaseless and abundant.
To the point where I might have burnt myself out a little in trying to single-handedly keep up with it all (I am insane). But I guess that's what passion does to a mf.
Anyway, let's get to the point shall we and allow me to present to you, dear reader, the ten albums which I believe had the biggest impact on me this past year and whom I enjoyed and listened to the most :
1.) Hypno5e - "Sheol" :
I knew that when Hypno5e announced they'd be putting out a companion record to 2019's "A Distant (Dark) Source" (my AOTY of that year), the chances of them making it to the peak of my favourite album releases for a second round would be very high, and it would turn out that I was absolutely right in believing so.
From the first notes of charango accompanying a reading of César Vallejo's poem "Heces" to the final destructive eruption of distorted sound, "Sheol" utterly transfixed my imagination throughout the past year.
Once again, Hypno5e have put out a scholarly masterclass of cinematic post-metal that explores the correlation between space and memory through an existential lens, with exceptional grace, amazing songwriting and musicianship.
This album was single-handedly responsible for the biggest writer's block I've ever encountered here simply due to the fact that I wanted to do it justice by going all-in on the research behind the concept, the themes, the various quotations taken from literature and cinema and their relevance within the album's context.
I left it unfinished for months and months but I hope I will come back to it and finish what I started, if but for my own personal satisfaction.
Needless to say that "Sheol" has occupied my mind throughout the entirety of 2023.
2.) Sleep Token - "Take Me Back To Eden" :
Perhaps one of the most divisive bands in recent times, love them or hate them, Sleep Token has had everyone and anyone even remotely involved in alternative music talking about them.
While I have mixed feelings about their almost overnight rise from being a treasured obscure alt-metal band to a global phenomenon, "Take Me Back To Eden" entirely justifies this immense jump in popularity.
Not only is it a satisfying and emotional conclusion to a triptych steeped in tales of modern day heartbreak under the guise of eldritch deities and hooded cults ; it is an incredibly diverse patchwork of modern music that drips with charisma and technical proficiency.
There are so many elements that make Sleep Token work so well and appeal to so many, whether musically, aesthetically or in their marketing but I personally believe that where the band truly shines is in the way they arrange their compositions, whether it's the keys, vocals, electronics, drums or when they choose to pull back for a simple yet efficient breakdown ; their songs always move so gracefully from start to finish and even more so on this latest record.
Now that the cycle is over, anything could happen with what they choose to do with their artistic vision and they already have people theorizing and gossiping about their future.
For better or worse, they truly have become the biggest sensation in the world of alternative music with this album.
3.) Enslaved - "Heimdal" :
Out of all the picks on this list, I think this is the one that surprised me the most given that I only started listening to Enslaved with 2020's "Utgard" and although I used to love whenever metal met Norse mythology as a teenager, that sort of premise usually makes me grit my teeth nowadays.
And yet, "Heimdal" is an incredibly unique journey into Enslaved's singular vision of Norse mythos through a compelling amalgamation of old-school prog and black metal with a heavy dose of electronic psychedelia and an overall modern metal feel.
As soon as the horn of Heimdal blows and the sounds of the oars slicing through the waters emerges, Enslaved embark us on an odyssey like no other, and before you know it, you've traveled between realms and back to where you started.
4.) fromjoy - "fromjoy" :
I said it in my review of this album and I'll say it again : this is easily the most exciting thing that happened to hardcore/mathcore this past year.
Fromjoy's sophomore self-titled relentlessly warps and glitches its way through a nightmarish digital hellscape in which breakcore fuses with mathcore and thall with vaporwave among many other things.
The entire album pretty much feels like the sonic equivalent of having your consciousness uploaded into virtual reality and the existential crisis that would ensue.
5.) Blindfolded And Led To The Woods - "Rejecting Obliteration" :
As a newcomer to this band, I was immediately impressed by how well they managed to fuse creative experimentation with emotional vulnerability on the back of blistering technical death metal with this album.
I think the only other time I felt a similar level of emotional depth in this genre was with Rivers Of Nihil's "Where Owls Know My Name" and that album really put them on the map, and the same thing appears to be happening to Blindfolded And Led To The Woods with "Rejecting Obliteration", rightfully so, albeit on a more modest scale for the time being.
There's some genuinely beautiful, haunting moments on this record as well as some ferocious, frenzied passages that leave a lasting scorching mark and the album as a whole encourages a thoughtful reflection upon themes such as mortality, suicide, addiction, coping with grief and religious indoctrination.
6.) TesseracT - "War of Being" :
Despite TesseracT being one of my all-time favourite modern prog metal bands and having put out records I'll forever cherish, my initial reaction to "War of Being" was lukewarm and it didn't really invite me back all that much at first.
But of course, I did end up coming back, and the more I did, the more I uncovered and wanted to experience it all over again.
Easily some of the best vocal performances of the year on here, and although I originally faulted the instrumentation for feeling a bit too recycled or blurring into one massive heap of djenty riffs with not that many standout moments, the more I listened, the more I appreciated the less flashy but more intricate performances from everyone involved.
I still haven't properly delved into the conceptual universe the band created with "War of Being" but that gives me yet another excuse to keep revisiting it beyond the mere joy of experiencing the album's triumphant highs and emotional lows in this rallying prog epic all over again.
7.) Zulu - "A New Tomorrow" :
Perhaps one of the most important voices in hardcore and heavy music as a whole this year ; "A New Tomorrow" is as vicious as it is creative while bearing a strong message of positivity that pushes for self-acceptance and empowerment of those too often wrongfully and systemically marginalized while also celebrating Afro-American culture and music.
You better be ready to fight for survival if you find yourself in one of their pits because Zulu are not playing around one bit.
8.) Humanity's Last Breath - "Ashen" :
How naïve are those who questioned if Humanity's Last Breath could somehow get even heavier and more menacing than they were on 2021's "Välde".
"Ashen" is straight-up apocalyptic, the stuff of nightmares, it is designed to crush your will and shred your eardrums with some of the most oppressive and distorted sounding production in modern metal.
Buster and crew are leading the way when it comes to redifining heaviness and what modern heavy music should sound like.
9.) The Zenith Passage - "Datalysium" :
The most recent entry of the list ; although I was late to hop on board the "Datalysium" train, it swept me off my feet immediately with its ridiculously tight, cybernetic technical death metal.
"Datalysium" has some of the most fun and addictive riffs I've heard all year and has set a new standard for tech-death that puts an emphasis on virtuosity without sacrificing feel and groove while also having a great thematical concept that ties in with the way the music sounds.
Be aware, you won't be getting rid of those earworms any time soon once you spin this record, even just once!
10.) Frostbitt - "MACHINE DESTROY" :
Leaving the frozen glaciers, icicle-filled caves, blizzards and avalanches (see what I did there?) for a cyborg-infested dystopia has allowed Frostbitt to go even crazier with their guitar tone and sound design experimentations, and the result is one of the thickest, grooviest albums of 2023.
Combining elements of thall, mathcore and hefty doses of KoRn-inspired nu-metal, "MACHINE DESTROY" is ridiculously heavy, fun and again, dangerously groovy.
Yet another earworm warning should be issued for this one as they may just override your system.
And that concludes the 2023 end-of-year recaps and toplists for me!
If you've been enjoying these types of posts or the blog's content in general, please consider supporting me with a "cup of coffee" over on Ko-Fi, any little bit helps keep the gears turning and keep turning they shall!
I might change the way I present certain types of content here in the future (perhaps focusing more on interviews, live reports and longer review pieces for instance) but I am determined to keep improving the quality of what I do here and expand the possibilities of thenoiseblog as an outlet for sharing and covering the best of what underground, alternative heavy music has to offer!
That's all folks, thank you for reading this far (you're an absolute legend if you did), I wish you a successful year 2024 and I hope it started with a bang for you already, have a good one.
Cheers!