Greetings! I know we still have some more individual lists to share in the days and weeks ahead, but since we’ve already crunched our combined list we just couldn’t wait to share it! 2023 in metal was even stronger than the year before, in my humble opinion. All the highly anticipated stuff delivered (for the most part) and like always there was a substantial pile of awesome new stuff that was brought to our attention and managed to stay in our collective rotation. In summary, it’s another year down here at Nine Circles, and we can say with confidence that this art and this project is a wonderful distraction from the crumbling world around us. Once again we’ve rounded up our favorite albums as a writing team and nailed down the top nine albums between all of us. Here’s how it all played out…

As in previous years, each member of the Nine Circles staff (and I mean all of them this year!), chose their nine favorite albums (inclusive of EPs), listed in order, and up to nine honorable mentions. Because… well, you know. A scoring system was than applied to the rankings. For example, one person’s first place album received 10 points, the second received 9, and so on and so forth. All honorable mentions received a single point each. Then, combining the scores across everyone’s lists, we have ourselves a Nine Circles ov 2023, brought to you by, well, everyone. Actually everyone!

You’ll find our top albums of 2023 as chosen by the Nine Circles staff immediately below, starting with number 9 and working down to number 1 at the end. As before, we also tracked the labels behind these albums, allowing us to determine a label of the year, using the same scoring process as above. This is clearly the highest honor in the industry, so I’m sure the anticipation couldn’t be higher. Who claimed the title for 2023? You’ll have to wait until the very end to find out.

Simple enough, right? Right. Enough of all that, let’s party…

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9. Moonlight Sorcery – Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle

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8. Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium

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7. Katatonia – Sky Void of Stars

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6. Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags

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5. The Ocean – Holocene

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4. Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit

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3. In Flames – Foregone

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2. Wayfarer – American Gothic

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1. Panopticon – The Rime of Memory

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And there you have it! Speaking for myself (Corey), this might be my favorite ‘All In’ list yet. There’s a lot of range in those nine albums, and I think it’s a pretty strong representation of where our listening adventures took us as a collective group in 2023. Now let’s get into some of the numbers…

• 128 different albums ended up in a “Best of 2023” list across our team, slightly down from the 136 that made an appearance last year.
• 56 of these albums appeared in only a single list, way down from the 101 last year. So basically, with 72 albums appearing in multiple lists, the team agreed on more stuff this year. Isn’t that nice?
• Panopticon and Horrendous appeared in the most lists (7), followed by Wayfarer and Tomb Mold (6), and then The Ocean and Moonlight Sorcery (5). So unlike this wonderful nation of ours, the wealth was distributed pretty evenly.
• 11 different participants picked 9 different albums as their #1, with only Katatonia and Wayfarer topping multiple lists (2, duh).
• Unlike last year where the highest scoring album was 25, Panopticon ran away with it a bit with 40 points. Wayfarer and In Flames tied below that at 34, with Wayfarer getting the tiebreaker for appearing in more lists. Similar deal for The Ocean, Hellripper, and Katatonia, who all landed at 21.
• Speaking of In Flames, I’ve seen Metal Internet do what it does best (see also: worst) this year, and I’m sure some of you are curious where Majesties landed. Well, they missed the cut after a tiebreaker with Horrendous and Moonlight Sorcery. They all landed at 20, but Majesties only appeared in three lists, compared to seven and five, respectively. This is fine.
• Anyway. Those 128 albums were released through 64 different labels, and 10 selections were released independently…

Which brings us to our last announcement for 2023. The Label of the Year for 2023, as declared by the fine writers and editors of Nine Circles is… 20 Buck Spin! Which is of absolutely no surprise to yours truly. Seven different 20BS albums landed on our lists, with Tomb Mold and Majesties at the top. As far as scoring goes, 20 Buck Spin ended up with a score of 72, but unlike last year the gap between the top labels was a bit closer. Nuclear Blast landed at 57, driven by Foregone, and Season of Mist, always a 9C favorite, was right behind at 56 thanks to Horrendous mostly. To wrap up, join us in offering congrats to 20 Buck Spin! Your award is DEFINITELY in the mail this time! (No, it still isn’t. But here’s the good news: We’re sorry!)

To finally wrap up 2023 for good, Nine Circles would like to end the year, as always, with a massive thank you to the bands, labels, PR folks, fellow bloggers, and everyone else that we’ve connected with in celebrating and sharing the music we love with the rest of the metal community and beyond. To our staff, THANK YOU. You make this Nine Circles ride a fun one, and the friendship and community you bring to our space everyday helps keep the passion in this passion project. And of course, to you, our readers, for making the questionable choice of exploring, and maybe even returning, to our corner of the metal internet. Sharing what we’re passionate about is what this is all about, so our appreciation for every single one of you is unending. You make it all worth it.

Cheers to 2023, and a great 2024 that lies ahead. And remember, the real Album of the Year is the friends you made along the way…