I promise: this will be as convoluted as I get when it comes to post titling! But it needed doing, and there’s reasons behind the seemingly contradictory statements and the asterisk at the end. Traditionally I’ve always had a ranked End of Year list with 25 albums, an Honorable Mentions list with another 15 ranked in alphabetical order and – since 2018 – a list of great albums that for some reason or another didn’t make my list of the Best of the Year. And sure, I could’ve done the same thing this year, but I noticed some pretty definitive trends in my listening habits, habits that had been growing for some time: the majority of what I “love” and return to time and time again lean toward a more “metal-adjacent” sound. Call it stoner, psych, whatever…while I still love the sharpness of metal, the density of rock solidified its grasp as I wend my way through my sixth decade of life on this planet.

So consider this edition of Nine Circles ov… more than just my traditional kickoff to end of year lists. Those are still coming, but with some rare exceptions they’re going to focus on the heavier, more extreme end of the metal spectrum. Some of my absolute favorite records of the year are on this list, and whether you want to call this category “metal adjacent” or “hard rock” or anything else, have at it. After eight years writing for this site you should know my feelings on labels and lists…

So let’s dive in and geek out over some terrific records.

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If my heart was anywhere this year, it was with progressive rock. And nowhere did that progressive rock shine like it did on Fearless, the very Rush-inspired sophomore release from Canadian rock duo Crown Lands. The only thing more seamless than their emulation of Fly By Night and 2112-era Rush is my utter delight that they did so (and with the blessing of Alex Lifeson to boot): listen to the 18 minute “Starlifter: Fearless Pt II” which kicks off the album and you’ll see what I mean. Naysayers can go jump in a lake; this album has everything I love about music, from the extended jams and collage of analog and electronic elements to fantastic vocal hooks and copious solos. This is probably my favorite, most listened to album of 2023. It rocks hard, it’s technical, and it isn’t afraid to wrap some real social issues in its space-age concept, especially around the horrors of run amok capitalism and the plight of indigenous people.

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Yeah, so…we gotta talk about The Dirty Nil. Because not even 15 seconds into “Celebration,” the kickoff track to the band’s fourth album Free Rein to Passions you’re probably asking yourself “But Chris! This is heavy as FUCK!” Yeah, it is. And I can tell you the Top Brass of 9C have been struggling mightily as to how to frame this killer record. We all go our own way, and my way was to consider the album in context of the band’s entire output, which is more centered around pop/punk, emphasis on the punk. That doesn’t stop The Dirty Nil from being a righteous fury of rock with more hooks than a Vince Locke Cannibal Corpse album cover. “Nicer Guy” may be the anthem of the year for me. At a tight 31 minutes, the entire album is nothing but power – there’s not a weak track to be found. Another record that probably has more plays than almost anything that came out in 2023. Is this my second favorite all around record of 2023? Yeah, probably…sometimes it’s even my first.

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I admit I fell off from the wonders of East of the Wall after their 2011 album The Apologist. No real reason, just a case of so much music and so little time. I tested the waters again with 2019’s NP Complete and was happy to hear the band’s progressive take on post-metal was getting more Prog and less Post. That slide reaches its apex with A Neutral Second. There are delicate moments of guitar and bass interplay that are sublime (“Fawning”) and moments almost Voivod-ish with dissonance and rage (the middle of “Autosomal Recessive”). Add three vocalists, three guitarists, and a heavy emphasis on electronics and you have something reaching the peaks of what a band like Between the Buried and Me can hit, just more consistently. There, I said it.

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I can hear more crumbling from the cheap seats. “But Chris! This band features members from Kowloon Walled City and Less Art – both bands you’ve featured on your end of year lists before! AND IT’S HEAVY!” Yeah, yeah, yeah… Look. Sometimes you stretch concepts and definitions and you make it work, okay? The point here is that Ex Everything is a noise rock/post hardcore behemoth, and after Less Art going the way of the dinosaur following their brilliant debut and KWC putting out what to my ears was their best record let’s just say I was primed for the nasty gnarled rock Ex Everything lets loose on Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart. Having only been out a month (it came out November 10) I’ve been listening to it constantly. Angry and frantic, yet tethered together by some incredible musicianship there’s something about the angular chords and riffing on tracks like “Feral City” and how they project tension and explosive rage in equal measure, a contradiction in action also embodied in the truly ferocious vocal work of Andre Sanabria. So yeah…by all rights this could just as easily be on my main list. Don’t sweat the categories; just listen and fall as heavily as I did for it.

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Is Remedy, the latest from Boston, Massachusetts’s Gozu the answer to the eternal question of “What happens if you mix stoner metal and Alice in Chains?” I don’t know, and I don’t care: when that riff hits about two and a half minutes into opener “Tom Cruise Control” I’m a foot stompin’, head bangin’ and hand wavin’ fool. The amount of fuzz cranking through the amps on this thing is unfathomable, and there’s a boogie to the rhythm that is positively infectious. When I wasn’t laying in bed stoned listening to prog, I was probably in bed stoned listening to stoner rock. Yeah, at age 50 I rediscovered how calming a good edible can be for my anxiety and depression. Thank you State of New York for legalizing recreational use of marijuana, and thank you Gozu for supplying as much fuzzed out rock as a man can handle.

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It starts similar to my East of the Wall story: guy falls for an album, then nothing for years. But this time it wasn’t my fault: it’s been 22 years since Ice Age released the excellent heavy progressive rock of Liberation. I thought that was it, and then out of nowhere came Waves of Loss and Power to knock me right over. The first thing you’re going to notice as “The Needle’s Eye” grabs you is that voice. Okay, well maybe the killer guitars from Jimmy Pappas. And how tightly locked they are against the exquisite drumming of Hal Aponte and the bass playing of Doug Odell. But then…THEN you’re going to hear that incredible voice emanating from the throat of Josh Pincus. Holy Hell, folks. It’s like they took a time machine, ripped Dennis De Young out of Styx circa The Grand Illusion and put him in a progressive metal band. Or even now – De Young is 76 and still sounds great. This is a fantastic album that sounds timeless and also sounds like they never took a break after 2001. Come for the riffs, stay for the great keyboards and soaring melodies and the continuation of their “To Say Goodbye” suite which kicked off all the way back in 1999. Love this.

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You know who I miss? Shooting Guns. Now there was a band who had a direct line into my musical soul. I don’t know if we’ll ever get new music from them again, but most of the gang is back with the new outfit Runway. And they’re not only sporting some of the best album art in 2023, but they’re also trafficking in some serious four on the floor rock and roll with their self-titled instrumental debut. Their Bandcamp page describes them as “merchants of instrumental boogie and choogle” and I don’t know if there’s a more apt description for how tracks like “Slower Egypt” and “Attempted Mordor” work their way into my ears. The sound is dark and thick, but not in a depressing way. This is the sound of the waves moving the earth, eroding the bedrock and uncovering the discarded detritus of musical movements that will remain timeless for those in the know. I don’t know what a “Franchy Cordero” is – it sounds like a cool hat (turns out it’s the name of a baseball player, which is even better) but I know I like the way it sounds. I like the way this whole album sounds.

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Where has Southern Empire been all my life? This Australian progressive rock band belts out incredible harmonies and some truly infectious hooks on Another World, their third studio album. The music can be heavy (just heck out the riffs on opener “Reaching Out” which also features a wicked catchy chorus) but where they shine is in that particular brand of European progressive rock. There are some serious keyboard fireworks, and some hard AOR vibes. My favorite track – maybe my song of the year – is the epic 12-minute exercise of “Face the Dawn” which has one of the best choruses I’ve hard this year. It feels like Dream Theater lite until the middle instrumental break which gets positively insane with bass theatrics and more keyboard wizardry before the guitar solos take us back to that chorus hooks that has burrowed into the depths of my soul. New vocalist Shaun Holton is a revelation, and the way he works his voice – both solo and in harmony with guitarist Cam Blokland who sings lead on the fragile and beautiful “Hold On To Me” is just pure magic. In a year where my heart really lay in progressive rock, this was one of the best discoveries I made.

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Other bands on this might have sipped from the cup of the 70s, but no other band on this list embodies the spirit of 70s rock like Tanith. The Brooklyn band channels their inner Uriah Heep mixed with NWOBHM to forge the searing Voyage, the band’s third full length. The alchemical reaction of the band lies in the duality of the vocals – check out the performance from guitarist Russ Tippins and bassist Cindy Maynard (who BTW is a fiend on bass – she plays all over the fretboard, never content to simply hold the low end down) on opener “Snow Tiger” and you’ll see what I mean. Songs like “Flame” hit the same way classic Heart does, and the band is never afraid to let their inner songwriters shine. I love heavy, but sometimes you just want to bask in the glow of classic rock and roll, and Tanith succeeded more than any other band this year (except maybe for the actual Uriah Heep, whose virtues I’ll extol in our annual non-metal podcast episode). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit back and revel in that opening bass display on “Snow Tiger” one more time, with the volume on 11.

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Like I said, we’re doing things differently this year. If I post nothing else, I’m completely happy with this list standing as my favorites of the year. But if you’ve been reading Nine Circles for any length of time, you know I can’t simply let this stand as my only end of year wrap up. I’ll be back next week with the Honorable Mentions, and I guarantee you it will bring the metal right up your ass.

-Chris