Time to start with an inflammatory statement. Lord of the Lost’s Opvs Noir Vol. 1 is not perfect by any means, but it’s the album that genre luminaries Ghost should have released this year, instead of the one we got.
Backtracking a little bit - for those who don’t know, Opvs Noir is to be a trilogy of albums from Lord of the Lost, which as a concept is a little dubious (how can they, or anybody, possibly have three quality albums of material ready at hand?) but if this first installment is to be the launch point, then the subsequent two releases (release dates unknown as of this writing,) should at least merit attention.
Lord of the Lost has long been a singles band. Each of their albums has a couple of satisfying earworm bangers on it, but they also have a history of stocking their albums with dramatic borderline ballads, as fits their idiom, so it can be a tiresome exercise to find the wheat amidst the chaff.
The band’s previous album, Blood & Glitter, did a lot to correct that trend, by writing an album full of bopping sing-alongs and cutting back on the number of purely dramatic pieces (which makes the sublimely excellent “One Last Song” resonate even more.) Now for this new record, it’s come to the point where the bombastic, over-the-top songwriting of the band’s younger years has been paired with the pacing lessons learned from the previous record, to produce an effort that is solid both in breadth and scope. The band delivers a versatile experience of both down-and-dirty metal chugging and easy to digest, passionate choruses. You know, like Ghost should have.
Not to mention that the songwriting on Opvs Noir Vol. 1 has also become more dynamic and varied. Skip all the way down to “The Things We Do For Love,” and suddenly Lord of the Lost is writing a Combichrist song, but interspersed with the kind of high drama that Lord of the Lost is so accomplished with. Could the blending of these two things been a little smoother? Yeah, the song kind of sounds like two songs in one, but the juxtaposition of the two pieces is so entertaining that it works anyway.
What we see from Lord of the Lost that’s hard to say they’ve displayed previously is a sense of real ferocity. There’s a lot of destructive potential in the riffs on this album, as evidenced both by what the band is playing and the sheer volume and distortion of it. Past the mid-point of the record (more on this in a minute,) beginning with “Ghosts,” the riffs bite with a savagery that is uncommon for Lord of the Lost, and it adds a new and appreciably dire dimension to the band’s typically more accessible fare.
There’s a sense that even with this being the first album in a trilogy, that this new record is two albums in one, and the first half is the weaker of the two. Four of the first six songs test the waters of what’s in the second half, but they feel a little more wallpaper, especially in conjunction with what comes after. Only “I Will Die In It,” which sounds almost like a righteously angry song from a musical, and “Moonstruck,” really hit a chord (no pun intended) of something more substantive and of greater promise.
It is worth mentioning that Opvs Noir Vol. 1 is peppered with guest appearances, from the influential (Feuerschwanz, Tina Guo,) to the shrug-inducing (Within Temptation.) This gives a possible window into how three albums of material in succession may be possible - by incorporating many other artists into the creative process and making the trilogy more of a collaborative work, under the single banner of Lord of the Lost.
Either way, OpvsNoir Vol. 1 is a quality jumping-off point for a musical project that is ambitious in scope. Just make sure to listen to the whole thing, and not get stuck in the first half. Fingers crossed that it can keep the momentum going through parts 2 and 3.
Here we are again - we're at the end of another year, which means it is time for the most arbitrary thing of all, which is to recap the musical arts of the year in the manner of a concise, ten-item list! Naturally, diligent readers will note that my list goes to 11, because Spinal Tap.
I usually allow my editorial blurbs to speak for themselves as far as an individual album on this list goes, but I did want to pause to the make the following assertion - as recently as the fall, I was not confident in this list, and I was notably alarmed that I hadn't managed to determine what I wanted the number one album of the year to be.
This last four weeks of dedicated music listening and review to things that caught my interest over the course of 2023 has turned around my opinion of the year entirely. There were a lot of strong efforts to be had in this calendar year, they just didn't happen to come from the usual sources. That's probably my own hubris and lack of time that accounts for what felt like personal disappointment. Luckily, hedging against my own laziness, I kept copious notes of what I thought was interesting this year, so it wasn't too terribly difficult to go back there and unearth what I feel now are the most valuable gems.
More than ever, in what was a difficult year in many ways personally, I found myself gravitating more towards albums that I simply enjoyed listening to, and away from ones that I found academically interesting or musically intricate. Bear that in mind as you read on.
First order of business, the rules: -All albums must be original studio content -No live albums -No covers albums -No re-releases -No anthologies of any kind
-No EPs (this is a little fungible, as if say, NIN's "Broken" came out this year, it is so good that it would merit inclusion. But it would take an extraordinary effort. Which is why I give away a separate EP of the Year Award.)
I first began reviewing music in a forum such as this in 2008, which is making me feel slightly nostalgic, so to catch up for new readers, here are all the albums I have ranked #1 over the years, beginning in 2011, when I did my first official year-end list: 2011 - Turisas - Stand Up and Fight 2012 - The Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovell - Don't Hear It...Fear It! (<--the only one on this list I regret.) 2013 - Turisas - Turisas2013 2014 - Red Eleven - Round II 2015 - Shawn James & The Shapeshifters - The Gospel According to Shawn James & The Shapeshifters 2016 - Destrage - A Means to No End 2017 - The Midnight Ghost Train - Cypress Ave. 2018 - Cancer Bats - The Spark That Moves 2019 - Destrage - The Chosen One 2020 - The Heavy Eyes - Love Like Machines 2021 - Cave of Swimmers - Aurora 2022 - Rxptrs - Living Without Death's Permission
A brief mention to some artists who put out albums that merited consideration, but didn't make the cut: Phantom Elite, DieHumane, Metallica, Asinhell, Kontrust, Jason Blake, Degrave, Smokey Mirror, Children of the Reptile, Glacier Eater and FLO (though this last was released this year, it was recorded in 2004.)
Alright, I've wasted enough of your time. Let's get to it:
HONORABLE MENTION: Blood Ceremony – The Old Ways Remain
Blood Ceremony’s stylistic shift toward the retro folk-pop they experimented with on “Lord of Misrule,” is a decision that I don’t know if I would have made, but after a long absence, the band proves that their unique mix of the occult, fuzzy guitar, haunting vocals and, well, flute continues to make them a force to be reckoned with. Those who walk into this hoping for old Blood Ceremony may be disappointed, but if you keep an open mind, there’s a lot of well-constructed old-school rock to be had here.
EP OF THE YEAR: Hellevate – The Purpose is Cruelty
It’s been a long while since I enjoyed a sampling of thrash that reminded me so much of the golden days of thrash and the revival that Power Trip promised but was sadly never able to totally deliver on. Everything about this EP works, and the very fact that it is an EP works in its favor, As they say, leave ‘em wanting more, and Hellevate does exactly that. The guitars are crunchy, the vocals are edgy but restrained, the beats are good but not obsessive – it all meshes into some of the best pure thrash that’s been produced in the new millennium. This is also the best band from Kansas City since The Browning.
11 – Necropanther – Betrayal
I published the review of this album a week after its release just because I felt I needed more time with the album to really digest it and try to make something of it. It’s maybe the only review I’ve ever penned (typed? Word processed?) where I ended up scoring the album incomplete. Some six or whatever months later, with a dozen more listens, I still don’t know if I really have a grip on everything good and bad that’s happening here. But that sense of intrigue alone makes it a unique listen worthy of consideration for this list just because of its staying power. Throw in the fact that the juxtaposition of rock guitar solos with modern death metal presents as novel a sound as exists in any quantity in metal right now, and this record is worth the time.
10 – Overkill – Scorched
Another couple years, another Overkill album. Overkill may well be the thrash version of AC/DC – if you have some concept that you like Overkill, you may well like the overwhelming majority of their catalogue, and if you don’t, you probably won’t like this either. But that’s overly dismissive and doesn’t address the fact that Overkill, some twenty albums into their career, still sounds dedicated and vital. It’s hard to find that amount of professionalism within any band that’s been around so long, let alone among Overkill’s thrash contemporaries. “Scorched” stands out because Dave Linsk, long undervalued in the metal community as a guitar player, finds new avenues to control the pace of the band without losing any of their famed teeth.
9 – Lord of the Lost – Blood and Glitter
I’m so glad that Chris and I had the conversation at the end of last year about how we define a ‘year’ for the purposes of these lists. We came to the joined conclusion that any album released after the publication of the previous list should count toward the next year’s list. Lord of the Lost released this record on December 30th of 2022, and I would have been loathe to leave it without any further consideration. I’ve long been a tangential follower of the band (who’s popularity seems to only be growing after cruelly finishing last in the Eurovision song contest 2023,) but they’ve never put together a full album that made me say ‘wow’ until this one. (That said, I still don’t know if they’ve ever written a better single than 2018’s “Loreley,” but this record’s “Dead End” comes close.) Every song on this record pops in some way, finds a way to be interesting or catchy or both, and culminates in the best LotL album to date.
8 – Hellfreaks – Pitch Black Sunset
What a strange record, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s one part pop-punk album, one part rock sing along and one part screaming hardcore anthem. While those idioms are all related, none of that sounds like it should work on paper, but listen to “Old Tomorrows,” which throws in a quasi-metal breakdown, and pureblood metal solo, and you’ll see how this genre-bending, swirling mass of an album becomes so much more than the sum of its parts. This is like if Cripper and New Year’s Day tried to write an album together, but, you know…good.
7 – Royal Thunder – Rebuilding the Mountain
I am not a typical musical listener in that I have very little emotional attachment to any of the music that I enjoy. I don’t associate songs or albums with any particular feeling one way or the other (with the exception of the Destrage song “Rage, My Alibi,” for reasons I’ll keep to myself.) I say that though, to say that the emotions of an artist that they press into their music is not lost on me. And “Rebuilding the Mountain” is a deeply painful and cathartic album for Royal Thunder, and while the circumstances of the record are serious and dire, the record is so much better for the raw infusion of genuine frustration and pain and hurt and ultimately forgiveness that permeates every moment. “Now Here – No Where” will live in my head for a long time.
6 – Powerwolf – Interludium
Power just writes fun records. There may not be a metal band that does that with greater skill or sense of adventure than Powerwolf. That’s really all there is to it. The fact that they live on the outer orbits of power metal without succumbing to the cookie cutter that’s disfigured that genre forever is even better.
5 – Lucifer Star Machine – Satanic Age
A new-age Misfits? Well, no, because the songs are more than forty seconds. But that’s the vibe, and I’m here for it. To go one level deeper, there’s also a healthy dose of the Dropkick Murphys mixed in here, and I mean Dropkick Murphys from back in the “Do or Die” era, not in the last fifteen or so years. It’s the rasp in the vocals that sells that latter aspect, but this whole record bops along with gross lyrics set against the kind of accessible rock that gave birth to the entire punk movement in the first place.
4 – Robots of the Ancient World – 3737
As good a slow burn as there’s been since the first Mothership album, or Sundrifter’s “Visitations.” Less direct than the best works of The Heavy Eyes, RotAW succeeds in that this is a full-on stoner doom record that never retreats into minimalism or gets lost in jam-like wandering. That’s not an easy feat when all your songs are 6-plus minutes. “3737” is aided by the fact that it’s limited to 6 songs, one of which is a throw away interlude, so all the band’s good ideas were mashed into a few packets, rather than spread out unnecessarily. (Subtracting the throwaway, this has the same number of tracks as Hellevate’s EP, but because it still runs more than thirty minutes, qualified as an album. For those scoring at home.)
3 – Zardonic – Superstars
This is two years in a row now that a DJ has put out a metal album that cracks my year-end list (Dampf’s “The Arrival” last year.) Maybe it’s time that I just admit that I was born in the 80s and a certain degree of automatic love for electronic programming is burned into my genetic code. Still, you know why this album is here? Not to go too deep into the reeds, but this has been a tough year for me. Lot of adversity, lot of trial and tribulations that required patience to navigate. And this album makes me smile. The fun factor is even greater than the baseline for Powerwolf, since this album exists solely for the purpose of being a fun album. There’s no story here. No grand mysticism or mountain in the distance that holds the secret to the keys, or whatever the hell. “Rock and Roll Tonight” is more or less a KISS song for the 21st century, but it's just so damn awesome. In the end, if your music isn’t making you smile, or making you enjoy it on whatever level it needs to meet you at, what the hell is the point anyway? Plus, a really banging cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” a song that was in desperate need of a kick in the ass anyway.
2 – Kiberspassk – Smorodina
When I first heard this album at the end of December last year (it was released in January of 2023,) I was convinced I had already heard the best album of 2023. It’s been a long time since I had heard an album that was so different than anything I’d heard before. The rarest of all gems in music journalism is an album that sounds like literally nothing else in the best possible way, and Kiberspassk (who, by the way, are the same folks as in the more traditional folk band Nytt Land,) have crafted an album that combines metal, industrial, dance, folk, mythology and throat singing into a stew that it totally without peer. The single “Daleko” is as haunting and beautiful and strange and energizing as any song I’ve ever heard.
1 – Graveyard – 6
This feels a little bittersweet. This is the fifth consecutive Graveyard record to appear in my top albums of the year. And it’s the first to be ranked number one. Which, to come around, is bittersweet because I don’t think this is the best Graveyard album. “Hisingen Blues” is almost certainly better, and I think I enjoyed “Peace,” this album’s forerunner, more than I did this one. That doesn’t mean, however, that this can’t be the best album of 2023, though I do think I’m going to mentally jockey between this and “Smorodina” for years to come, and there will be days that I’m sure I will regret my decision. Still, as Chris and I talked about when we wrote the double review for this record, this is Graveyard’s most soulful, most cinematic album to date (I will cede the point that every song Truls Mörck sings, even the ones I love like “Sad Song” on this record, all have the same tone.) Really, what this comes down to is that there are no songs on this record I have any inclination to skip – they are all not only enjoyable, but unique in their own right within the context of the album. That kind of fluidity and consistency of songcraft has to count for something.
This is all pretty straightforward. Nothing makes us happier as a society than an arbitrary list of a subjective medium, so here’s mine!
The rules, such as they are, remain the same as ever – must be an original stadium album. No re-releases, no greatest hits, no live albums, no covers albums. Got it? Second rule – it goes to 11.
Moving on.
The list you see below, simply for informational purposes, was whittled down from approximately thirty semifinalists that ranged in genre, composition, production and release date. Thirty candidates is probably fewer than I’m accustomed to compiling, but this may not be a reflection of the year in music, at least not anymore than it is a reflection in my personal and professional life and the diminished time I had to spend with new albums on the whole. It is entirely possible that I missed something this year I would have really enjoyed, but I remain confident in the caliber and conviction of this list.
The one casualty of having less time, however, was my Little Album That Could award. I just didn’t get exposed to much local or truly independent music this year, so I have decided not to award that honor, rather than award it in a lackluster, half-assed fashion.
First out of the gate, EP Of The Year – There can be no other choice, it has to be Red Eleven’s “Fueled By Fire.” These guys are among the best bands working today, and their production is spotless for a group working with less than a full budget. Their guitars are sharp, the harmonies soar, and the songs click with a combination of ‘90s rock sensibility and new age pomp and circumstance.
HONORABLE MENTION– Fair number of bands just on the outside looking in this year, but honorable mentions still abound – The Browning followed up the excellent “Isolation” with “Geist,” and while this new record isn’t as groundbreaking or bombastic at its predecessor, it’s still an album of high merit. I enjoyed the grunge throwback overtones of Kobra and the Lotus’ “Prevail II,” actually significantly more than I enjoyed the original “Prevail” last year. Orange Goblin put out another Orange Goblin record, and I also found it was the year for ‘Black’ bands – Black Elephant, Black Royal and Black Wizard all held my attention for a moment. I had my requisite hour of fun with Parasite, INC, and they flirted with the list for a moment before ultimately falling short. The last album to be cut was Black Mirrors and their record “Look Into the Black Mirror.” It was the 12th man on an 11 player roster. So kudos to them in particular.
Without further ado –
#11 – KING WITCH – “Under the Mountain”
I spent a lot of time with this album when it first came out, and then as the year wore on, I found myself less and less attracted to it. Some of that was an influx of new material, and I think some of it is that the album doesn’t have a lot of secrets to unravel – the first listen and the twentieth are much the same experience. That said, this is as great a straight-ahead metal bulldozer as was released this year, and it should be treated as such. There’s got to be something to be said for being in my personal rotation for five months.
#10 – WITCHSKULL – “Coven’s Will”
It was a great year for doomy, drone-y artists, and Witchskull was no exception. Relative to the fine wines of high-end production and popular tastes, Witchskull goes down like grain alcohol, but that actually works in its favor. It’s too easy to draw parallels between this and the grand Black Sabbath albums of old, but sometimes the easy way out is the best way out. There’s a lot of bluesy dust covering every inch of this album, which makes it infectious. It’s entirely too easy to just start nodding your head and bob along with the strangled rhythms. Good stuff.
#9 – GHOST – “Prequelle”
Suck it, haters! This is a fun record. I know, I know, there’s a million papercuts of betrayal to all we thought Ghost or wasn’t, blah, blah, blah. I don’t care about any of that crap. Ghost has the right to do whatever they want. Is this a pop album? Yeah, maybe. Is the single a sugar-coated affair that leans way over the line? Sure is. But the recognition of that fact doesn’t make it any less fun. You do you, Ghost.
#8 – LORD OF THE LOST – “Thornstar”
I’ll admit it, this got by me on the first pass. On my running list of music I take in over the course of the year, I marked it down, but didn’t make any special notations next to it. On some whim in the late fall, I went combing through and tried it again, and that’s when it stuck. Part industrial, part dark rock, part melodic singalong, “Thornstar” does a lot right, and deserves its place on this list for “Loreley” alone. I say this through gritted teeth because I have such respect for the artist I’m about to impugn, but Lord of the Lost released the album that Emigrate should have released.
#7 – BLACK MOTH – “Anatomical Venus”
This album hit early and I just kept coming back to it. The cover art is….well, blech. But the album is freakin’ great. I’m starting to think that any band with “Black” at the front of their title is using the word as a family name – it’s their honorific tie to Black Sabbath, a band they all hope to emulate in some form or fashion. Black Moth takes that formula, injects some rock into it, and then combines the entire proceeding with a siren, hypnotic overlay. There’s something about this music that’s difficult to describe, something with the tone that’s new and original and haunting. Every couple months, this would work its way back into my ear.
#6 – SUNDRIFTER – “Visitations”
The desert rock is strong with this one. Yet, it’s companion is doom, and so the combination of those elements makes for an unique experience. “Visitations” isn’t solely colored by the red and yellow hues of a sunset among the sand, nor it is entirely given to a black, forested midnight, but lives at the twilight of both those images. If Witchskull released an album that was easy to fall into the groove of, Sundrifter gave us all an opportunity to zone out entirely, a chance to separate from time itself and just be swept by the undulating wave of music. This entire paragraph has been too dramatic in general, but it should illustrate the point.
#5 – FEAR OF DOMINATION – “Metanoia”
Many years ago, I reviewed an album by a duo called Alien Vampires, and I think at one point I think I said something like “grab your many-buckled leather pants, colored dreadlock extenders and gas masks, we’re going dancin’!” I feel the same about this album. I remain eminently fascinated by the revival of industrial metal that seems to be hand in hand with the rise of EDM, and the fact that those train tracks are colliding with increasing frequency has led to the creation of something entirely new – Alien Vampires, The Browning, Kontrust and 6:33 have all toyed with varying aspects of the idea, but Fear of Domination seems to have found the most complete synthesis of the metal and the electronic. “Metanoia” also feels the most like a recording of a live experience of any album on this list. “Sick and Beautiful” might be my favorite song of 2018, and also might be the most fun metal song of the year.
#4 – ALIEN WEAPONRY – “Tu”
We’re getting into the big hitters now. This is the separation point, where the albums before now were one caliber and this one and on are the gems of the season. When I first heard this band described as a bunch of teenagers making metal, I shuddered involuntarily as horrible, uninvited memories of the hype machine surrounding Black Tide came swarming back into my brain. So it was with considerable caution that I hit play on “Tu”…and was instantly taken by it. Make no mistake, these kids have a lot of work to do, because the music rough around the edges at the best of times, but the core is a diamond. There’s one album every year that cracks my list just because it’s so impossibly heavy, and this is it this year. “Tu” is a straight-ahead banger, a wrecking ball of noise and chanting. The incorporation of the Maori verses and heritage works to give the band a novel feeling in much the same way as culture works in favor of Tengger Cavalry. Musically, there’s not a lot new here, but the accents make it feel different and unique.
#3 – GRAVEYARD – “Peace”
I feel a little bad about this, only because as late as October, I was really convinced this was finally going to be the Graveyard album that made it to #1 for me. This is one of the three or four best bands active in modern music, regardless of genre, and I really felt good giving them the top spot….but then as time went by, two albums edged ahead. Graveyard, if you’re reading this, I am sorry. I am out of superlatives to describe this band – they’ve never disappointed me, and every song on this album, and the three albums before it, gives us another piece of an amazing puzzle yet to be completed. Graveyard does everything right, and reaches across a hundred aisles to attract fans from all walks of music. “Peace” is a masterpiece, but then, four of the band’s five albums are (and the first one is still good, but not as iconic as the others.) If you’re not a Graveyard fan yet, I don’t know what to tell you at this point. Get on the bandwagon, damn it!
#2 – CLUTCH – “Book of Bad Decisions”
Clutch is still teaching masters classes on how to write music. For a few years there, I was leaving them for dead (my full apology can be found in my formal review of this album,) but now here they are, having hit a double with “Earth Rocker,” and two home runs with “Psychic Warfare” and “Book of Bad Decisions.” While different in craft and sound, this is some of the band’s best work since “Blast Tyrant,” and Clutch’s impact and command of the genre can’t be undersold. These boys from Maryland are still a force to be reckoned with and they’re not done yet.
#1 – CANCER BATS – “The Spark That Moves”
What strikes me the most about this album is that Cancer Bats appear to have dropped all pretense of anything else and have gotten back to having fun. “Searching for Zero” was a fine album, but it lacked a certain human quality that made “Dead Set on Living” such an instant classic. “The Spark That Moves” is just that, full as ever of piss and vinegar, but also grinning from ear to ear, punching out a combination of styles that still remain harmonious and catchy. It’s a difficult niche to live in – the speed and simple hooks of punk, the abrasiveness of hardcore and the edgy gravitas of metal must exist in their proper balance, and more bands that we care to recount have tried and failed, or at their best only managed to carry two of the three. Cancer Bats, by contrast, have found the secret formula. Much like “Sick and Beautiful” mentioned above (though for wildly different reasons,) if you can’t get up and feel your pulse quicken for “We Run Free,” then you’re abusing the privilege of music. Every song on this album feels much the same, leaving us with a glorious album that rolls and rumbles with power and conviction. Find it. Buy it. Then buy it for a friend.
