Yes, I have come out of the well to shame mankind for their lack of knowledge.
Last year, I supplied a list of 20 albums, which took a lot of time to cut down – so much so that albums that were close to making the list ended up in my honorable mentions. However, this year, I decided to be more critical about the albums I wanted to place here, and now the list has been made.
Welcome to the remnants of the cutting room floor EOY list season!
Here’s the drill: there are 20 15 albums on this list, and I reviewed some of them. EPs, as always, are off the list, and I have also added the new rule of not adding metal-adjacent albums. This means that Insomnium’s brilliant Songs of the Dusk and Einar Solberg’s fantastic 16 will not be appearing here. As is customary the list is divided into four parts, which are as follows:
- the Nebulous, where any of those albums’ placements could be placed anywhere at any time;
- the Hypothetical, where the albums’ placements are more concrete, but can also be moved around;
- the Theoretical, where the albums’ placements have been solidified; and
- the Top album of the year.
Also, please note that I did previously submit a list to our benevolent editors that depicted an initial draft of albums I wanted to include on this list. However, since that submission, I have moved items around, and now, I believe my list is set in stone.
Without further ado, here we go!
Part I: The Nebulous
When someone asks me what “neoclassical” means in the context of metal, I think of two bands: Apocalyptica on one extreme, and Ne Obliviscaris on the other.
After five long years from their previous release, Urn, Ne Obliviscaris came back swinging with Exul, an album that marries both the classical music genre with the tendencies of extreme metal. While my last foray into Ne Obliviscaris was their album Portal of I many years ago, this album makes me want to pick up NeO’s discography and start it from the beginning. What I love about Exul is how emotional and well-composed the music is, swinging from moments that fit an amphitheatre to what sounds like straight fretless bass that you can only find in the trenches of tech death. Hell, there’s even a violin that adds texture and dramatics to the complexity of it all. However, despite its music, the album’s main soul is the vocals – the duality of both the smooth, catchy cleans and the brutality of the harsh growls anchor the music together, creating this magnificent vortex of sound that is so catchy and compelling. It’s my own fault that I didn’t get to spend a lot more time with this album, because it melds some of my current interests together, but I am happy to spend more time with it now. This album is a grower, and its first track is its calling card, so if you have the time to fully immerse yourself into Exul, then you should do it.
14. The Gorge – Mechanical Fiction
2023 has been a fantastic year for Pelagic Records – so much so that, if I hadn’t added more rules this year, Pelagic Records would have taken over half of this list.
I originally listened to Mechanical Fiction while I was redlining a script, and this album made the redlining process pass incredibly quick. Now if I remember correctly, Pelagic has always been a label that has been focused on the post-metal side of metal, so this album felt like one of those outliers that the label took a chance on. This album takes elements of tech death, progressive metal, and metalcore, and combines it into one of the heaviest matters of the universe. In fact, it has so much weight in it that the music itself could wreck a man and they would be thankful to experience the sonic equivalent of lead. When I first heard it, I was so taken by how it just materializes into being. From start to finish, it is relentless in its progression, even at its most melodic and bombastic. Underneath its heaviness, however, lies a distinct amount of joy that stems from how the music is played. You can tell that The Gorge was having fun creating music together, adding more influences and shifting from one specific sound to another. It’s a smorgasbord of sounds and influences all mixed together to create one of the most compelling albums I have heard this year. Mechanical Fiction is a sleeper, requiring your full attention to appreciate. If you like your music heavy and dynamic as hell, then this album is for you.
Bands have always been allowed to evolve, but no one ever thinks about where that evolution will take them until the newest album comes out.
I have been hearing about Laster for years, but never really gave them a proper listen. After all, I enjoy black metal even at its most weird, and they seemed to be right up my alley. However, in the past two years, my tastes shifted, and I don’t listen to as much black metal as I used to. Cue Andermans Mijne, an album that seemed to touch upon all of the weird things I love about black metal. As our very own Vince described it, this album is just fun to listen to, containing a certain joy that comes from music that is well-composed and cohesive. The album also heavily reminds me of High Castle Teleorkestra’s The Egg That Never Opened, an album that combined various musical elements together and created one of the strangest musical experiences I had the pleasure to listen to. However, unlike The Egg That Never Opened, Andermans Mijne is accessible, its strange blend of black metal, jazz, and pop a siren’s call to the strange and the bizarre. It might be on the avant-garde side of things – it is incredibly experimental to a certain extent – but it’s worth listening to numerous times. Laster wasn’t making a joke about their music being defined as “obscure dance music” – it may sound familiar, and it makes you want to dance, but you have no idea why you want to start.
I love my metal like I love my orchestras: emotional, bombastic, filled with a certain amount of drama, and keen on breaking convention.
For anyone that knows me, you know I will never shut up about classical instruments in metal, especially when cellos are involved. A recommendation from our very own Zyklonius, Mercury is an album that mixes the intricacies of progressive death metal with a cello acting as the vocal lead. I had never heard this band up until this album was brought to my attention, so color me surprised when I found out just how atmospheric and melodic Mercury is. Unlike NeO, which tends to feature their violin as a standout feature, the cello lead on Mercury is well-incorporated as part of the music’s structure. While it may act as the vocal lead, the rest of the instrumentation doesn’t feel like it’s just there to cater to the cello. The metal parts shine because the cello grants them color, and the cello parts shine because the metal parts are malleable and can shift into anything you want them to be. Psygnosis also incorporates a lot of electronic tones that gives the music weight, allowing the more emotive aspects to shine, as seen on the epic “Eclipse”. Although it might be hard to think about how music can keep someone transfixed for the length of an album without vocals, Mercury is an example of an excellent album where no vocals are required. Mercury falls within my sphere of interests, and I am so excited to spend more time with it in the coming year.
Before starting to talk about Emergent, I need to apologize to one person and one person only, and that is Zyklonius. I did not include Autarkh in my own 2021 EOY list, even though I loved Form in Motion.
Back in 2021, Autarkh released the fantastic and mind-melding Form in Motion, an album that carries on the legacy left behind by Dodecahedron. It combined metal with elements of heavy electro-industrial beats that short-circuited my brain and made me appreciate the heavier side of electronics. Emergent follows in that tradition, still utilizing those same elements yet remaining different from its predecessor (and from Autarkh III, the set the band did for Roadburn Redux). When I first heard Emergent, I couldn’t believe this was the same band that released Form in Motion two years before. In the haze of my memory, Form in Motion was a heavy and difficult listen, but it finally clicked after I had spent a lot of time listening and dissecting its numerous musical threads. However, Emergent clicked immediately, its music washing over me, clinging to me in the deep recesses of my memory. While it is more accessible than Form in Motion, Emergent still maintains a high level of complexity that keeps the listener interested and focused on how it will end. It’s also incredibly catchy, where all you want to do is belt out the lyrics while also headbang to the beat the music makes. Again, this is an album I wished I had spent more time with but given that Emergent came out so close to the end of the year, I am so happy I got it on the list. I am sure this album will continue to grow on me, and I have a feeling that this will become one of my favorites in due time.
Part II: The Hypothetical
I didn’t think I would be talking about Delain this year but given that my feelings have changed since I first heard this album, it needs to be discussed. Also, there are three symphonic metal albums on this list.
I have listened to Delain for a very long time – they are one of the few symphonic metal bands I still follow to this day – so when it was announced that the previous lineup had been fired/disbanded, I was understandably upset. I promised myself that, if Delain released a new album, I would listen to it with a critic’s ear. After all, when someone new joins the fray, you are bound to be critical of the band if they don’t fulfill expectations. However, not only did Dark Waters exceed all my expectations, but the album also began to grow on me the more time I spent with it. Diana Leah is a fantastic vocalist who makes a seamless transition into Delain, and you must commend her for taking this role in stride. While its music remains within the symphonic metal sphere, Delain has now expanded the electronic elements that were in 2020’s Apocalypse & Chill, resulting in music that promises evolution and further experimentation. While I loved Delain’s previous lineup, I felt this new lineup, with Martjin Westerholt at the helm, had done an amazing job in exceeding my expectations. Every time I come back to it, it feels like there’s something new to discover, something new to take apart and listen through. I love that the music is ever-changing, never staying stagnant and always showcasing something different. From fantastic power ballads to epic choral accompaniments, Delain continues to show that, despite its various personnel changes, they are still able to capture lighting in a bottle, and I am a sucker for it.
9. Xandria – The Wonders Still Awaiting
2023 was the year of comebacks, where many bands who have taken more than three years to release new albums released some fantastic records, and it so happened that this album was one of them.
After what I like to call the “the Theater of Dimensions shitshow”, I didn’t think Xandria was going to come back to form as a band. After all, with lead singer Diane van Giersbergen departing the band, resulting in chaos and most of the band leaving some time after that, the future of this band seemed uncertain. However, back in 2022, when it was announced that not only Xandria was coming back with a new album, but with a new lineup, I felt some trepidation. I loved Theater of Dimensions back when it was first released, as it contained everything that makes symphonic metal a fantastic genre to listen to: fantastic choral and orchestral work; a frontwoman whose voice held personality, color, and vibrancy; a smattering of influences that work to its advantage; and what sounded like the launch point for new ideas. It was going to difficult to top that for me, but Xandria absolutely smashed it with The Wonders Still Awaiting. Just like Delain above them, my appreciation for this album had grown, and I felt like there was always something new to discover. It also helps that the music is catchy as hell – there were many moments where I was singing along and just having a great time listening to this record. However, the biggest standout is vocalist Ambre Vourvahis, whose impressive vocal range gives the music this incredibly modern sound. She has also made the seamless transition into being the band’s vocalist, and it seems she has also taken the role in stride. I have high hopes for Xandria; I hope they learn from their past, and that they continue to make new music with this strong lineup.
8. Within Temptation – Bleed Out
Throughout the year, I like to make guesses as to who will be releasing albums, and, occasionally, I get a few of them right. Bleed Out was one of those correct guesses.
I like to think of Bleed Out’s promotion as a highly intelligent move, as Within Temptation began to release singles since the pandemic, but never releasing more than two songs a year. That way, once Bleed Out was ready to hit the promotional market, it didn’t feel stale. It felt like they were giving fans enough to sate them, but not enough to spoil them. In my case, I had listened to some of the singles, but I didn’t think they were going to be on the album. Imagine my surprise when I finally listened to the album in its entirety, and I saw those songs on the tracklist. Those songs aside, Bleed Out is possibly one of the best albums in Within Temptation’s discography, brilliantly following up 2019’s Resist. Not only is the production and musical direction fantastic, but it also touches upon various recent political and social events/issues, such as the war in Ukraine, the death of Mahsa Amini, and bullying and prejudice. I also appreciate that Within Temptation is continuing to expand their sound, mixing elements of metalcore, electronica, and djent into their symphonic metal. This is what modern symphonic metal should be – a genre that is not afraid to get experimental with their sound and be able to create things because that’s where the ideas lead. I was surprised with how quickly I became enamored of this album; the moment I pressed play, I had this on loop, trying to see how the previous singles I had heard fit into the overall themes Bleed Out wanted to explore. Within Temptation hit this one out the park, and I am looking forward to future endeavors.
If you wanted to know what happened back in 1696, just know that it coincided with Scotland’s own famine – then the cannibalism happened.
I like Insomnium a lot – I have listened to a lot of their music since my introduction to them back in 2016, with Winter’s Gate. While I loved Heart Like A Grave, I haven’t revisited the album in a while, and I opted, instead, to listen to their newest album, whenever it was supposed to come out. Cue Anno 1696, which was sold to me because Sakis Tolis of Rotting Christ is featured on a track. However, once time passed, I started to come back to this album more and more often. The more I listened, the more I kept finding new things about Anno 1696 that I liked. While Insomnium doesn’t play the kind of melodeath that most people are used to, they are able to play a kind of melodeath that adheres to the specific themes and stories they are trying to tell. It’s dense but rewarding once you get used to the slower-than-usual pace, the atmosphere, and the way the music is composed. Think of Anno 1696 like a fine glass of bourbon: you are to enjoy it leisurely, at your own pace, with the idea that you will get used to the drink the more you sip. Anno 1696 tells a story that is centered around famine, grief, loss, and the shift of blame to others while a major ecological event was occurring. From hunting witches to the death of a loved one, each track will take you on a journey surrounding this major event, and all the other smaller events that seemed to occur underneath it all. In the end, all hope was lost, and people had to do what it took to survive. This album is one of the rare instances where I was more interested in the story and how it was going to end. Of course, the music is fantastic and worth the runtime, but the story was one of the main reasons I kept coming back. There’s something about Finnish melodeath that just makes you want to come back and revisit them.
6. Hanging Garden – The Garden
Back in my review for Hanging Garden’s The Garden, I stated that someone needs to come find me if I didn’t have this album in my EOY list. As it turns out, I never forgot about The Garden.
I have written about them before, so I will keep this short. I like to think I have listened to plenty of death-doom over the years, even when it hasn’t been at the forefront of my listening experiences. However, I like to dabble in death-doom, and Hanging Garden happens to be one of those bands I enjoy from the genre. What I love about The Garden is how the band adheres to its death-doom aesthetic, splitting the album sonically in half. Although there are moments where either pops into whatever half the musical focus in, Hanging Garden makes sure to stick to what they established from the get-go. While this type of death-doom might not be for everyone, I personally enjoy it, as this band heavily reminds me of Draconian. I love my death-doom to have a heavy atmosphere and sonic aesthetic that is accessible to listen to, and Hanging Garden succeeds in that regard. The album certainly has made an impression on me, and I like the variety it provides from all the current interests I seem to be dabbling in. The Garden is a breath of fresh air, and I am deeply appreciative of their sound, their aesthetic, and their maturity as a band.
Part III: The Theoretical
File all of these albums under “albums Hera will never shut up about”.
5. Mercenary – Soundtrack For The End Times
Have you ever had an album that you find so late in the year upset all your rankings? Outside of Within Temptation, Mercenary was the other band I was willing to shift things around for.
It’s no secret that one of my favorite albums of all time is Mercenary’s The Hours That Remain. That album was my first proper introduction to what I thought was power metal, and I was particularly taken by the vocals. For someone who mostly heard men growl in the music they were listening to, I found myself adapting quickly to both the music and the vocals, and I have been looking for that ever since. While I haven’t listened to much Mercenary in the intervening, I was not very pleased with their 2013 release, Through Our Darkest Days, as I thought it was missing something. Imagine my delight when I learned that Mercenary was finally releasing a new album after almost ten years of silence. When I finally heard Soundtrack For The End Times in November of this year, I took to it like fish to water. Personally, I like that Soundtrack For The End Times sounds like Mercenary captured the magic they had on The Hours That Remain and refined it to a more modern sound. The sweeping vocals, the majestic music, and the stellar production are a highlight, and it feels like it heavily echoes all the fantastic things that were on The Hours. While a lot of people may not be keen on the 61-minute runtime, I will let it pass, since it’s been almost ten years since we’ve had new music. It did surprise me that it made it this high given its release date, but I am okay with ranking this album here.
4. Herod – Iconoclast
With Herod announcing their disbandment earlier this month, I have to preface this by saying that I am so happy this album exists out in the world today.
I also wrote the review for this album, so I will keep it short. In the past couple of years, I have been heavily into post-metal, so I am always on the lookout to see what the genre has to offer. In association with post-metal, it’s also nice to see whether there’s also some good sludge out there. Herod’s Iconoclast is an amalgation of the things I enjoy about post-metal and its sub-subgenres: it’s dense, it’s heavy in atmosphere, and it slowly wants you to sink to the floor. It’s music for the day of revolution, for the day you damn everything to be erased. That’s essentially what this album is about: the concept of damnatio memoriae, where you are striking something off the record forever so you can rebuild over it. In a sense, Herod wants you to forget everything you know about post-metal and sludge, and have their music become the new standard for this genre. Although this band no longer exists as we know it, Iconoclast is a perfect swan song of an album, and I feel like more people need to know about this band and their legacy. If you are looking for music that bursts with energy and violence, please give Iconoclast a listen – I promise you won’t be disappointed.
3. Thy Catafalque – Alföld
Flutes in my black metal? It’s 2023 – you should by now, at least, have one flute in your black metal if you want to get weird with it.
We talked about Alföld for the June portion of our June/July AOTM chat, and I said a lot of words in my defense of this album. Months later, I still like this album, finding Alföld to be the most black metal Thy Catafalque has been in about twelve years, given their trajectory over the past few albums. While it’s still experimental, as it incorporates several instruments and influences into its structure, this album might be the most straightforward in the band’s recent output. I love that they continue to push boundaries, creating music that can go from the most traditional black metal sound to the sudden inclusion of synths, strings, and horns through the course of each track. Alföld is a delight to listen to, an album that says more about Tamás Kátai’s work ethic and musicianship than anything else. However, it’s not just Tamás; it’s also his group of collaborators that give life to his music and have added their own flair while adhering to Tamás’s grander vision. It also pleases me to know that the band has finally started doing live shows, such as the one in Budapest Park, and the performances are excellent. I love this band so damn much, and there’s not much more I can say about that.
2. The Ocean – Holocene
To think humanity is a blip within the epoch of time, and yet we still think we are the center of the universe even after it was proven we weren’t.
We also talked about Holocene for the May portion of our April/May AOTM chat, and I had a lot to say about this album. I have spoken in the past about how The Ocean’s previous albums are a metaphor for the ending of relationship and the aftermath of the end, respectively, and now we have Holocene. The album itself deals with the concept of humanity, from historical events to the range of emotions that are felt daily. This is reflected in the way the band experiments with their music, expanding and pushing against the space of each track. It is also incredibly intimate; the music pulls you close and holds you while looking at this tapestry, filled with war, rage, happiness, and a slew of other emotions that have given humanity color. However, for me, this album follows the themes of Phanerozoic I and Phanerozoic II, in that a person has finally decided to start again. They have dealt with the end of relationship, survived the aftermath, and they can now start to dip their feet into relationships. It’s a clear beginning for something new, both for the literal music and for the figurative story this album is trying to tell. Holocene is a fantastic record – the addition of electronics sounds odd within the context of post-metal, but it makes sense in the context of history – and it’s one I have been coming back to since its release. However, despite my love for it, Holocene lost against the actual album of the year, and it fought for a long time.
And my top album of 2023 is…
1. Katatonia – Sky Void of Stars
This is how much I enjoyed listening to Katatonia: on my Spotify Wrapped, I was in the top 1% of listeners for this band, because all I did was go back and listen to Sky Void of Stars.
I cannot describe how much I love this album, and I haven’t been able to stop talking about it. When “Atrium” was first released as a single, I latched on quickly to the song’s sensuality. In fact, I think I played that track for that entire day when it came out. Then, when the album was released, I played it for almost a month straight. However, this didn’t mean I dropped the album entirely; in fact, I kept coming back to it, taking the time to listen to each track again and again. Sometimes, when I was reading a book or working on things at work, I would put on Sky Void of Stars and let it play, falling in love with the music once again. There’s also something inherently romantic about this album that reminds me of late nights, long conversations, and the intimacy of connection. I have no idea why I feel this way about the album; perhaps it’s the way the album is composed or it’s the way Katatonia has managed to make music that strikes a chord with me. I also love how their atmosphere tends to hang in the air – you are cued to each emotional shift, to each change in tempo or in instrumentation. While there are various cues to The Fall of Hearts, since this album is more rooted in doom-tinged prog, there also various references to City Burials, especially in tracks like “Austerity” and “Colossal Shade”. On City Burials, the band allowed themselves to be more experimental, but here, on Sky Void of Stars, they are keener on staying the course, of creating magic out of nothing at all. Hell, even the slow ballads, like “Impermanence”, a track that grew on me, are just damned excellent. I can’t stop and won’t stop talking and thinking about this album, and I have a feeling it will beat out Dead End Kings and Tonight’s Decision as one of my favorite Katatonia albums of all time.
And with that, we close the list once again.
In 2023, I spent a lot of time trying to see what was out there, especially when I am so used to the genres I stick with, but I like to think of this list – and of the lists I have written over the years – as a time capsule of what I was thinking about and listening to at time. I can honestly say that I am very happy with this list, as it encapsulates all of the different genres I am interested in, while also showing off a range of different genres that I love and appreciate.
I know that 2023 has been a difficult year overall, but I hope 2024 brings not only a sense of peace and normalcy, but a moment of quiet that we all seem to need.
Please be careful out there, and may you be able to read as many books as you need to.
Hasta la proxima!
-Hera
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