It’s that time when the End Of The Year starts briskly shuffling us on out to the door and into the eternal night. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Last call, pick your final poison. Oh, and don’t come back, please and thank you, I’m sorry but that isn’t possible, no you’ll have to send your complaints to the management. Send as many as you please, it doesn’t matter. Our hours are firm.
However, you are welcome to this assortment of memories you made while you were here. Some you’ll forget by the time you get to wherever you’re going, some you’ll forget as soon as you wake up. Some you’ll resonate with immediately, and hold tightly to for the rest of your journeys. Some will wait, lurk, and show their true value with time. Can’t tell you what to expect on the other side of the door, but I reckon you’ll love, you’ll lust, you’ll hate. You’ll achieve and you’ll fuck things up. Hopefully not too badly. You’ll progress and regress, dance and tango. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl. Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. Please do not party on Garth; do mind your grammar. Hopefully while you were here in 2023 you learned something that will prove to be beneficial when the door hits your ass. If not, well, you made it this far, hope you at least enjoyed your time, thanks for coming, don’t forget to buckle up.
These are the records I’d put my quarters towards in the jukebox of records in the twilight hours before being kicked out of 2023. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s mostly just the ones that sounded the best to me when I played them very loudly.
Warped But Potent Mirrors, Or Refractors Of Other Dimensions
Often the toughest choices are the 20-11 countdowns. Many are worthy, this is what I called for when it counted.
20. Cruel Force – Dawn Of The Axe
Mannheim, Baden Württemberg, Germany. Teutonic thrash that sounds like the Bonded By Blood babies launched from the birth canal of the Show No Mercy goat fella straight into the fucking pit. It didn’t require dynamic production to be killer, but it’s thrown in anyway as a bonus–I can’t get over how great it sounds. Roto-toms that roll like rattling skulls, kicks with thunderous rumble, guitar tone that bites and tears flesh, and vocals that bark like a militant call to evil. Coupled with the savage attack described above, it’s a combination that is nothing short of deadly.
#20 on this list, but #1 when shitplastered on Mickey’s malt liquor grenades.
• Bandcamp
19. Trichomoniasis – Makeshift Crematoria
California, USA. Devastatingly rude, deliciously obnoxious, nothing about Makeshift Crematoria makes sense in the traditional idea of “enjoyment.” But it’s of a sneaky little breed of brutal death–there’s just enough twisted logic to it that it makes one question their sanity for liking it. NEW STANDARD ELITE.
(Note: There is no way those drums aren’t concreted into place before recording. By comparison, they make the drums on War.Cult.Supremacy sound like Playskool bongos. NEW STANDARD ELITE.)
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
18. Mortuary Drape – Black Mirror
Alessandria, Piedmont, Italy. As Konrad so well put in his review, Italians simply do it better. Mortuary Drape have honed their sinister craft over the decades without ever going stale or taking a misstep. There’s nothing quite like the genuine article, and the Drape feverishly defend their cursed crown. A particularly smoldering record rife with tormented doom, bursts of punk, RIFFS, and some of the stone cold coolest basswork I heard in black metal all year.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
17. Nithing – Agonal Hymns
California, USA. Using a jackhammer, a concrete saw, and an M60 to explore the molecular makeup of alien biotechnology. I want the Nithing drummer to fight the Trichomoniasis drummer in a tornado of cocaine. NEW STANDARD ELITE.
• Bandcamp
16. Minenwerfer – Feuerwalze
Sacramento, California, USA. Minenwerfer has an uncanny ability to modify their voice just enough to wrap around each front of World War I they tackle, and with Feuerwalze they dropped a fucking shell on everyone who only loves Alpenpässe. It’s their most oppressive assault yet, littered with crude technicality and a barrage of sound–fitting it would be The Somme! A more than worthy entry into the veteran war diary that comprises their increasingly well-rounded and impressive tour of duty.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
15. Lost Harvest – Deluded Seas Of Diverge
Brownsville, Texas, USA. Originally releasing their demo in 1996, the same year The Chasm released From The Lost Years… makes Texas-by-way-of-Mexico death metaleros Lost Harvest feel like a sort of lost prophecy, only quietly emerging a few years ago with their debut album, Capitulum. Their sophomore album, Deluded Seas Of Diverge, continues to explore what feels like tangential territory to The Chasm, leaning into its own set of quirks and strengths, messily and sickeningly diverging itself from its host while still clinging firmly to the root.
• Bandcamp
14. Triumpher – Storming The Walls / Stray Gods – Olympus
Athens, Attica, Greece. Yes, I’m listing two here but hear me out: Our Staff List mentioned that 2023 was especially victorious on the power metal front, and none lead the charge for me like Greece. Two Hellenic champions set sail, Triumpher in a MANOWAR-class vessel, Stray Gods piloting an Iron Maiden frigate. Both crews bring much power metal glory not only to Greece, but to their respective ships as well.
• Last Rites Review (Triumpher)
• Bandcamp (Triumpher)
• Bandcamp (Stray Gods)
13. Demoniac – Nube Negra
Limache, Valparaíso, Chile. Demoniac return with their third thrash assault, and chock full of the left-of-center thinking that made So It Goes… such a formidable force. There’s a hint of maturity to the follow-up: the songwriting is more concise and the off-kilter ideas more fluidly integrated, but the ideas still flow like a stream of spewing black vomit. Continuing to set themselves apart in a scene that is bubbling over with some of the most exciting thrash metal on the planet right now.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
12. Moonlight Sorcery – Horned Lord Of The Thorned Castle / Twilight Force – At The Heart Of Wintervale
Tampere, Pirkanmaa, Finland / Dalarna, Sweden. Yes, I’m listing two here again, but here me out here again: The empowered black metal of Moonlight Sorcery and the dragon-riding ecstasy of Twilight Force are locked in an eternal melodic battle of 2023 power metal shred. The dark and the light, forever entwined in immortal combat for Spot #12.
(Note: If it looks like Moonlight Sorcery is winning over the Trogdor-like portrayal of the dragon from the At The Heart Of Wintervale in the attached image, it is because I think I understand what Dark Helmet meant when he said “because good is dumb.”)
• Last Rites Review (Moonlight Sorcery)
• Bandcamp (Moonlight Sorcery)
• Last Rites Review (Twilight Force)
• Bandcamp (Twilight Force)
11. Blood Oath – Lost In An Eternal Silence
Concepción, Bio Bio, Chile. While a great number of quality releases continue to hail from Santiago or Valparaíso, stepping outside of these two regions tends to reveal an even more bizarre face of Chilean metal. Blood Oath feel a bit Atheist, a bit StarGazer, a sizable chunk of Morbid Angel–all wrapped in a weirdly corrosive production. It’s very 90’s sounding on its surface, and doesn’t sacrifice any bit of its raw edge to its impressive technicality. Total acid, man.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
An Echo In The Finite Of The Infinite Act Of Creation
The 10-1 count. Most are fairly interchangeable in terms of ranking, all found particularly unique paths to reverberate deep beneath the skin.
10. MORBID HOLOCAUST – CONEXIONES
Valaparaíso, Chile. What a bizarre album! While I have yet to dive into the back catalogue of Morbid Holocaust (I’ve been entirely too fixated on this one), I suspect they’ve come a long way from the “Black/Thrash” tag attached to their Metal Archives page sometime since the one-man project formed in 2010. Conexiones feels like it could both greatly appeal to or rabidly repulse fans of Deathspell Omega, Deafheaven, Negative Plane, Wolves In The Throne Room, Enslaved, Oranssi Pazuzu, or Ruins Of Beverast. I find myself firmly in the “appeal to” category on this one, even for the influences I don’t normally like in my black metal. I found it challenging, yet an effortless listen. Mark of a great album.
• YouTube
9. GABESTOK – MED FREDEN KOMMER HADET
Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, Denmark. The sound of the fungus that grows in the shadows, deep in the coldest corners amongst the moist dirt of rotten Earth. Like a bunch of punks took acid and listened to Death SS and Samael and joined a cult. It’s a baaaaaad trip man, but I can’t stop dancing to it.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
8. HEAVY LOAD – RIDERS OF THE ANCIENT STORM
Stockholm, Sweden. I almost wrote this up for our Best Of 2023 – Our Album Art Favorites feature, I mean how perfect is that cover?! A pair of Vikings on an expedition to uncover the prophecy of the mighty Heavy Load’s return and thawing it from the frozen wastelands of time. That ice-melting warmth is felt all over Riders Of The Ancient Storm. Not only in the angelic production and warmth of sound in the traditional sense, but the music itself feels like its glowing. Not a lot of doom made it into my top list this year, but the heavy blues that Load lay down on “We Rock The World” (Dio-era Sabbath by way of Queen and Led Zeppelin comes to mind) and the sinking weight of the chains on “Slave No More” more than filled my itch for slow, low, smolderin’ rock ‘n’ roll. A soulful, triumphant return that not only relives old glories, but forges new ones along the way, as though picking up where the band left off forty years ago without missing a beat. Truly thawed from the icewinds of time.
• YouTube
7. LEGENDRY – TIME IMMORTAL WEPT
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The dreams that bitchin’ vans are made of.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
6. BEGRAVEMENT – HORRIFIC ILLUSIONS BECKON
St. Paul, Minnesota. Begravement’s debut managed to find a plethora of ways in which to tickle my sickle, checking a myriad of “for fans of” boxes with their debut, Horrific Illusions Beckon. The thrashy, melodic riffing style and creepy storyteller-like songwriting prowess of Deceased, the death metal lead and baseline heroics of Death, the rhythmic pacing and mind warping cosmic horror of The Chasm–and that’s just scratching the surface. At times I hear bits of inspiration from King Diamond, Enslaved, Annihilator, the list goes on. What’s more, the Frankenstein’s monster that Begravement have created proves to be even more a formidable abomination finds its own soul amongst the sum of its parts: “It’s ALIVE! IT’S ALIIIIIIVE!!”
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
5. AFTERBIRTH – IN BUT NOT OF
Strong Island, New York, USA. There was a lot of brutal death this year capable of turning the ol’ lump of beef between the ears into a pureed meat slushy. Awesome. Few had the wherewithal, however, to prepare and present the product as a gourmet dish the way Afterbirth do. In But Not Of is still ground cranial meat, but it’s been exotically spiced and formed into a loaf covered with a heavenly sauce and cooked to perfection before being ejected into inner/outer space for good measure. As beautiful as it is abrasive–it feels odd to call it soothing, but strangely enough that’s the best word I can find. Or perhaps my brain has just been mushed one too many times this year. Wear a helmet, kids.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
4. ASCENDED DEAD – EVENFALL OF THE APOCALYPSE
San Diego, California, USA. “Ascended Dead’s greatest strength on Evenfall Of The Apocalypse isn’t so much in emulating the spirit of the Ancient Ones as it is shoving them into the Almighty Grinder™️ and pureeing them into a sort of Necronomic Salsa.
Or, in other words, atom-splicing, nuclear metal of death.”
Strength through chaos.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
3. VARATHRON – THE CRIMSON TEMPLE
Athens, Attica, Greece. The sound of felling thousands of enemy warriors in battle and building a temple of their corpses where the fountains spew forth their blood. The Crimson Temple is perhaps Varathron’s most ambitious and fully rounded work to date. The Temple feels vast and breathtaking, packed with Herculean feats of strength while taking plenty of twists and turns through symphonic chambers and corridors of progressive rock. As high as any expectations of new material from the band can be, Varathron smashed through them with nothing less than a contemporary masterpiece.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
2. VÓRTIZE – DESDE BAJO TIERRA
Limache, Valparaíso, Chile. Feels awful weird having Desde Bajo Tierra at #2 this year when ¡Tienes Que Luchar! took my #1 spot last year. Awful weird indeed, as Desde is an even stronger, more focused album. More than a few times I’ve referred to Javier Ortiz as South America’s answer to a John Cobbett or Mike Scalzi. Every project he touches is left with his imprint, from his work in Terror Strike, Oldeath, or Demoniac, with Vórtize being the center of the storm. Ortiz hits on everything I love about Chilean metal–fiercely true yet boldly creative–expressed very honestly, very naturally in his own musical tongue. The way Slough Feg naturally integrate those Celtic melodicisms into their riffing/lead voice, Vórtize does with a Latin flair.
What gives the album an extra breath of life is Ortiz’s recruitment of talent. It’s not a display of cynical features one might find on a Euro power metal album with 27 guest vocalists so much as it’s a group of friends and fellow musicians from deep in the underground lending their voices, be it vocal or instrumental, to bring the vision to life. As much as Ortiz may be the eye, Vórtize means vortex–and Desde Bajo Tierra is nothing short of a storm of Chilean steel.
“Siempre metal (Siempre metal)
le gritarás al viento
Heavy metal (te ayudará)
Te ayudará a sanar
Es de verdad (le gritarás)
Le gritarás al viento
Heavy metal (te ayudará)
Te ayudará a ganar”
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
1. SACRED OUTCRY – TOWERS OF GOLD
Piraeus, Attica, Greece. There’s an old saying. Well, I’m not sure how old, but I’ve heard it for a while now. One of those things. “You have your whole life to write your first album, you only have 18 months to write the second.” While it’s been proven time and again that this is absolute malarkey, there is a hint of unfortunate truth to it in certain contexts. The days of big wigs chomping fat cigars backstage looking to rush into The Next Big Thing in, say, power metal (of all things) never really existed. Even if they were real, these fictitious fat cats have no power here. No, this is–ahem–empowered by something much greater than the hypothetical suits could ever understand.
Sacred Outcry had no pressure to release the follow-up to the two-decade long wait for their 2020 Damned For All Time… debut, as I gladly would have waited two decades more for Towers Of Gold. Luckily, I didn’t have to. While not largely divergent categorically from the debut, still featuring epic power metal with the Greek understanding of the fantastical might ‘n’ magic, hammer swinging strength of early US heavy metal, Towers improved on the already near-perfection of Damned for me on two major fronts: First, they recruited a voice of contemporary metal legend in Daniel Heiman to breathe life to the narrative. Secondly, they leaned a bit more towards Blind Guardian informed by Messiah-era Candlemass in terms of making the listening experience feel more than the sum of its parts, larger than life. In some ways, they feel like the power metal side of an current-day epic metallic coin, with Atlantean Kodex meeting their edge from the doom side.
I find myself once again grappling with old tendencies in selecting my favorite of the year. Is it just something about the music under that umbrella that encompasses heavy, traditional, and power that, when in the right hands, tickles just the right nerves? Is this something the mind needs to step in between the heart and the keyboard and say, “Hey, enough now, time to pick that killer death metal debut that you couldn’t put down, or that imaginatively brutal record that vibrated your innards, or that black metal album that left you on your knees in the backyard gazing into the moon at 3am every other Thursday night.” Truth be told, it very well may be a bias factor, but when I really needed time to be still and get fully engrossed in an album: to feel a little of everything all at once, and be capable of wielding the tools to combat everything that came with it, and to do so in a language I could not only understand, but be inspired by, Towers Of Gold nailed it every time.
I toyed with the idea of other albums in the #1 slot, and while there were plenty of worthy contenders, well, I think in my heart of hearts I always knew: There can be only one. Luckily, this gift is more than capable of being shared. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
IT’S JUST ABOUT TUNING IN TO THE END OF HISTORY. WATCH IT NOW, ON DEMAND. SO YOU BECOME AN OBSERVER: PARADISE REGAINED
EP’s, Demos, Cassingles, 7″‘s, Splits, Hit Clips, etc.
5. Stangarigel – Metafyzika Barbarství
Bratislava, Slovakia. If early Malokarpatan felt like intoxicated ritual dancing around a rural witches’ bonfire in ancient Slovakia, then Stangarigel is what you encounter when you wander deep into the woods away from the fields.
• Bandcamp
4. Savage Oath – Savage Oath
United States. Phil Ross (Manilla Road, Ironsword, Sentry), Leeland Campana (Visigoth), Carlos Llanas (Eternal Champion, Funeral Ash), Brendan Radigan (Pagan Altar, Magic Circle, Stone Dagger, Sumerlands) making pure heavy metal that not only lives up to the expectations of its pedigree, but leaves a thirst for more of this–for lack of a better term–supergroup’s style of timeless heavy metal.
• Bandcamp
3. Rites Of Tara – To The Otherworld Of Silver
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. As far as Celtic-sounding black metal that takes heavy cues from certain melodic men from Virginia goes, Rites Of Tara blow that Boogerside Snooper Squadron band out of the water. That was still pretty cool though.
• Bandcamp
2. Phaëthon – Eternal Hammerer
London, England, United Kingdom. Break up, wait forty years and come back because there is no way an album can top what I’m feeling for the Eternal Hammerer demo right now. Proper might ‘n’ magic heavy metal that sounds like it was found in a leather bound volume on a dusty forgotten shelf, its golden pages hiding stories of great adventure and the promise of heroic acts of valor.
• Bandcamp
1. Solipnosis – Síntesis Silenciosa
- Valdivia, Los Ríos, Chile. Even though Síntesis Silenciosa clocks in at 36 minutes, I’m pretty grateful for its artist-granted descriptor of “extended play,” as it saves me the trouble of figuring out where to put my favorite black metal release of 2023 in the top ten albums ranking. A Satanik South Amerikan witching black/thrash oubliette through a Voivod-ian trap door, the result is pure heart-devouring madness.
• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp
THELEOGY IS A PRETTY TRICKY BUSINESS AND AS MY BUDDY PHIL USED TO SAY, WE’RE JUST HANGING IN THE CURTAINS, MOVING THE LIGHTS, MOVING THE LIGHTS AROUND, TESTING, TESTING, 1,2,3…
Assorted works of note.
At the Altar: The Gauntlet – Dark Steel And Fire
New Jersey, United States. Worship album of the year, pure Bathory with the fire behind it to make it really count. Very personal spin on it without abandoning a bit of the formula. Runner-ups for this category include: Final Eclipse – The Dark World (Hate Forest/early Drudkh), Deathfukker – God Devourer (Abominations-era Morbid Angel), Bogside Sniper Squadron – Demo 2023 (GBK/Arghoslent), Lamp Of Murmuur – Saturnian Bloodstorm (Battles In The North Immortal with a bit of Blizzard Beasts thrown in for good measure).
• Bandcamp
Label: NEW STANDARD ELITE
United States. Plenty of labels kept to their standards of quality, so shout outs where their deserved. As far as a next step up, well, for me, few pushed their territory to the next level like NEW STANDARD ELITE. Sure, only a handful of meticulously curated brutal death releases comprised their roster this year, but the label strikes with surprising accuracy on the fringes of brutal death metal. While Nithing and Trichomoniasis made my top 20, I’d feel remiss in not mentioning Paroxysm Unit and Gorepoflesh especially. After the shift in ownership, it’s good to see the label not only surviving but thriving in passionate and more than capable hands.
Non-metal: Andy The Doorbum – Of Tears, No Amount Can Quench Mouths Maimed By Drought
Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. I’m not doing a full non-metal list this year, but I’d feel remiss in reflecting on the music of this year without mentioning the latest from Andy The Doorbum. Devastatingly heart-wrenching, Andy’s eighth studio album focuses on a complicated shade of grief–the loss of his father. For an understanding of how complicated, well, one only need to dip into his back catalogue (I recommend starting with the The Man Killed The Bird, And With The Bird He Killed The Song, And With The Song, Himself for a baseline before dipping into the more neo-folkish works beginning with The Fool).
Andy’s talent for grappling complex emotions in deceptively simple and relatable musical expression shines as brightly as it ever has on Of Tears. There’s a feeling of nostalgia that worms its way through the album, like returning to a childhood home and reflecting from the perspective of an adult. While the neo-folk aspects are still very much present, there feels like a return to the earlier, singer/songwriter days at the core of the music (perhaps the most obvious key is found on the re-working of the heart-wrenching “Medicamentum.”)
Despite Of Tears being a dark, depressing piece of art, there’s a silver thread buried beneath it it all: a tinge of hope that glimmers like a lifeline. And as soon as you find it, you won’t ever want to let go.
• Bandcamp
New To Me: Su Ta Gar – Jaiotze Basatia
Eibar, Basque Country. I’ve talked quite a bit about how important language/culture is in heavy metal, both in the lyrics and the way the minds that compose it work to the point its practically a catastrophic tragedy that I’d never heard Su Ta Gar, much less their 1991 debut Jaiotze Basatia before 2023. While I found them tangentially while exploring more Latin American and Spanish-speaking heavy metal, they are assuredly neither. The first band to fully embrace the Basque language, perspective, and struggle into metal, their heavily Iron Maiden-esque steel was tragically late for a time period where thrash was already past its golden era and death and black metal were hitting their strides.
The music holds supremely well out of time–the 80’s French heavy metal melodicism and speed of ADX and Sortilège is about as present as the French language is to the Basque tongue, the street spirit of Spanish heavy metal that worships Iron Maiden and Killers setting it alight with a Molotov cocktail of attitude. It all fits so well contextually while remaining first and foremost an effort of pure, effortlessly enjoyable heavy metal. Sure, its just music, right?
• YouTube
Podcast: Uhh Yeah Dude
Los Angeles, California, United States. When I first started listening to Uhh Yeah Dude sometime around 2008, I only had a vague idea of what a podcast even was. Hell, it was barely even a medium then. Still Wild West, open frontier, its capabilities and potential only yet to be fully explored. Fifteen years later and it’s become extremely viable. Any niche interest you have, there’s probably a podcast for it. Unfortunately, it’s also become so heavily saturated with influencers, stand up comedians, Blue Apron ads, show formats, guest interviews, etc that, sans from a friend recommendation, I can’t imagine finding something like UYD organically today.
On paper, it’s the stereotypical podcast: two dudes with microphones and a computer just straight lampin’. While the somewhat tongue-in-cheek tagline of “America through the eyes of two American Americans” does ring true, it isn’t the subject matter that holds it all together. The dynamic between Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette is the secret sauce that has kept me a regular listener for fifteen years of my life, and the fact that they’ve preserved it so steadfastly, refusing ads, guests, and all the bloat that tends to poison such things and remaining 100% listener-supported since Episode 1 in February 2006 through 1000 in October of this year speaks volumes. It doesn’t jump out right away, but spend that much time with people and you get to know them, and the pair have gotten me through a lot of l-i-v-i-n’ over the years. It’s a wild world out there on this rock that is spinning wildly out of control through the cosmos, it’s best enjoyed with the company of a good friend.
• Website
Thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me or cares remotely about what I have to say (whether you agree or not) about anything, especially when it comes to something as dear to my heart as music. A special thank you to Last Rites for giving me the room to bleed on the page, regardless of whether or not it makes sense in any sort of critical regard. I often wonder why I spend so much time sweating this stuff, or at the very least take the time to articulate why I feel something is important or noteworthy. Nothing says it like the music, and often it feels like what I have to offer is a futile effort–one of the many reasons music is so powerful is because I can’t fully express it with mere words. Try as I might, though, I’m admittedly not a terrific passive observer, nor do I have much interest in letting the mind intervene between the heart and the pen. The idea of “taste” is a pretty feeble concept, anyway. Perhaps the lesson this year is to just let go.
See you when I see you; thanks again for reading, and, most importantly, listening.
Seatbelts…
