AOTY List 2023 (Top 25)
I accidentally deleted my old list, so i have to do this again. This time, the list is ranked.
Honorable mentions excluded black and death metal:
Carnosus
Humanity's Last Breath
Svalbard
Closet Witch
The HIRS Collective
End
Mil-Spec
Military Gun
Foo Fighters
Wytch Hazel
Healthyliving
Divide And Dissolve
Geese
Cory Hanson
Squid
Peter Gabriel |
| 1 |  | Thy Darkened Shade
Liber Lvcifer II: Mahapralaya
Perfect rating 5.0
Extremely dense, tight, evil and absolutely highest quality (satanic occult orthodox gnostic whatever) black metal. Instruments are played incredible, especially the bass player could be in First Fragement, too. It is a long relentless and stressful record which never loses tension because of its constantly changing and always interesting varied songparts. This greek band should be huge (but as religious-philosophical lost true satanists they don't care anyways). |
| 2 |  | Panopticon
The Rime of Memory
Perfect rating 5.0
Perfect records are rare but they are existing. This is also the greatest winter record since any Paysage d'Hiver album. It's epic, it's cold, it's accessible, it has fantastic post-rock parts. I would not change a thing of it. Time flies by listening to The Rime of Memory. You can feel the wilderness. It is my album of the year. |
| 3 |  | Dodheimsgard
Black Medium Current
Perfect rating 5.0
Another perfect record when it comes to the difficult genre of avantgarde black metal. You can find a magical simplicity on this epic record. |
| 4 |  | Abigor
Taphonomia Aeternitatis - Gesänge im Leichenlicht
Very high rating 4.5
Total unique and hard to describe sounding black metal masterpiece. The overall listening experience is a great pleasure here. |
| 5 |  | Yeule
softscars
Very high rating 4.5
Yeule did always very interesting music. This time she steps into alternative and shoegaze like she has never done anything else. |
| 6 |  | Underdark (UK)
Managed Decline
Very good rating 4.0
Post black metal with very awesome screamo influences which make this dark and emotional. Sadly it's not that deep and i wish this would have 2 more songs. Feels like an ep. Top 6 anyways because it hits two of my very favorite genres in a perfect way. |
| 7 |  | Headache (UK)
The Head Hurts but the Heart Knows the Truth
Very good rating 4.0
Catchy and touching spoken word Boards Of Canada music with experimental AI-generated lyrics which are suprisingly inspiring most of the time and pretty dumb and fun in the other times. Long story short: this is a very special and relevant record for me personally. |
| 8 |  | King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of...
Very high rating 4.5
Addictive record which shows why the metal genre can be so much fun. Music and lyrics are highly entertaining, so is the artwork. Sometimes i hear Tool, Voivod and High On Fire in the music. |
| 9 |  | Moonlight Sorcery
Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle
Very good rating 4.0
Ok, i can admit that this record falls a little bit flat and overall is lacking any depth. But this is very ok, because listening to it is pure fast fun. It is like power metal disguised as black metal with unique guitarplay over it. Fantastic artwork, too. |
| 10 |  | Flooding
Silhouette Machine
Very good rating 4.0
This drum-driven mix of slowcore and noisy post-hardcore is a very good idea. Album is a pretty rough, meditative and exciting listen. Very cool record. |
| 11 |  | Chepang
Swatta
Chepang brought together two very different metal genres on Swatta which is very exciting: grind and experimental-avantgarde. For this they needed a long playtime but it is worth every second. |
| 12 |  | Team Scheisse
042124192799
Very funny, inspiring and catchy german punk rock. |
| 13 |  | Cruciamentum
Obsidian Refractions
This album is the perfect answer to the question what death metal is. |
| 14 |  | Godthrymm
Distortions
I would say, this is very mighty and modern alternative metal which you should love if you like a mix between Paradise Lost and Pallbearer. After a few spins you have an incredible satisfying and well-rounded album. |
| 15 |  | Jeff Rosenstock
HELLMODE
Highest quality adult punk rock for adult people. |
| 16 |  | ostraca
Disaster
Emoviolence and screamo heaven here. I like the jamming character of the album. It flows so well like the album is one long basement session full of the genre-typical energy. |
| 17 |  | The Kryptik
A Journey to the Darkest Kingdom
Kind of cheesy sounding epic black metal, which is highly addictive after a few spins. It is keyboard-driven and minimalistic symphonical. |
| 18 |  | Sprain
The Lamb As Effigy
Forget Swans! This is the real deal massive demanding monster album of 2023 full of creativity, noise, drone and pain. I do like vocals best when they are in spoken word style and remind me of La Dispute and post hardcore at its best. Saddly this is not very often otherwise this would be in my Top 5 probably and very saddly this band with its highest potential already isn't existing anymore. |
| 19 |  | Pascow
Sieben
Very good german punkrock allrounder. |
| 20 |  | Lankum
False Lankum
Presented as an irish folk album, this is much more than that. The songs have a lot of the time a menacing drone background and repetition parts which expands this from folk to an artistic threatening, immersive to transcendent and overall pretty dark listening experience. |
| 21 |  | Jeromes Dream
The Gray In Between
Screamo genre classic band in their late career with an out-of-nowhere future genre classic. Again. |
| 22 |  | Sufjan Stevens
Javelin
Masterclass songwriter album again. Javelin is like a best of Sufjan Stevens. Music ranges from melancholic to sad and is incredibly beautiful. |
| 23 |  | Model/Actriz
Dogsbody
Very interesting and kind of rough noisy-whatever music. Model/Actriz can play on tour with hardcore, indie bands or electronic acts as well. |
| 24 |  | Billy Woods and Kenny Segal
Maps
Best hip-hop record of the last years. Abstract and addictive. You can listen to it forever. |
| 25 |  | Liturgy
93696
Music as art. Incredible work. Call it a black metal opera or don't call it black metal. This should be praised alone for its artsy creativity. You could be annoyed with it but you could also find transcendence here. |
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