Hello, my friends. Hope you all had an amazing 2023. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to read this newsletter that my good friend Patrick and I get to do. I know free time is a premium so the fact that you’re willing to spend your time on the bus or train or toilet or wherever reading us yell at each other and be dumb about mainstream music really does mean a lot. If we’ve never had a chat before and you think we would be friends please hit me up on Twitter (Patrick: it’s called X). Thanks, cheers, and see you next year!
With that said… man, what a year for death metal. If 2022 was the year of hardcore (it was), 2023 is the year of death metal (it is). So many good albums this year. I left off a ton of amazing death metal records this year. It was an insane year for the genre. Hope you enjoy my list, there is even a non-metal album on it!
Andy’s AOTY List 2023
Jesus Piece – So Unknown
Dying Wish - Symptoms of Survival
Sunami - Sunami
Arif Mirbaghi - Mutual Occultation
Frozen Soul - Glacial Domination
Andy: I don’t have a lot of non-metal on the list this year (shocking right?) but Arif Mirabdolbaghi has a very fun experimental Iranian jazz record he made with friends. Really good vibe there. Jesus Piece, Dying Wish and Sunami are all bands that I imagine go absolutely hard in the pit and well deserving of making some EOTY lists. I’ll be trying to see them when I can. Frozen Soul understands that Riff is Life and death metal makes its first appearance on the list.
Patrick: I like Jesus Piece and Sunami quite a bit - they don’t make my list but they aren’t far from it. Dying Wish was a record I wanted to love when it came out but just didn’t do it for me really, cool band though and I’ll be keeping an eye on them in the future. Frozen Soul certainly has a sick riff. But my favorite here is the Arif Mirbaghi record. I love jazz that’s fucking weird. This sounds like interlude music on a Tool record but less drenched in Monster Energy Drink. So cool.
Fuming Mouth - Last Day of Sun
Blindfolded and Led to the Woods - Rejecting Obliteration
Better Lovers - God Made Me an Animal EP
Carnation - Cursed Morality
Hazing Over - Tunnel Vision EP
Andy: Fuming Mouth dropped a great death metal record - I love the ‘clean’ singing in “The Silence Beyond Life.” I wonder if people forgot how much of a joke band BALTTW was when they first started (Patrick: ?) and now they put out very good death metal. I really did not want to like Better Lovers when it first dropped. I don’t have a good reason. Every Time I Die had run its course for me but something about the tumultuous breakup between the Buckley brothers bothered me. It doesn’t matter because Jordan’s new band does it better than ETID has in a decade. Better Lovers is good and fun. Hazing Over is so much fun (Andy: I should have put this higher after reviewing this list… it’s so good). Just fun hardcore. Really slaps and I feel like it was slept on this year.
Patrick: Agreed with almost all of Andy’s assessments here. Fuming Mouth - fun ass record, great singing! Better Lovers - more like Better Than That Old Band. Hazing Over - what the fuck how did I miss this! I didn’t like Carnation at all - it reminds me of shit Andy listened to in 2012 when I would visit his Gainesville, FL apartment. Blindfolded and Led to the Woods is really cool though, definitely the one of this group I want to spend more time with.
HEAVENSGATE - And All I Loved, I Loved Alone EP
Suffocation - Hymns From The Apocrypha
Psycho-Frame - Remote God Seeker EP
Fires in the Distance - Air Not Meant for Us
Creeping Death - Boundless Domain
Andy: I don’t know anything about Heavansgate except they put out one of the better deathcore/nu-metalcore EP’s this year. Love the electronics on this track. Psycho-Frame definitely dropped the best beatdown/deathcore of the year. I love the snare in the middle of this song - gets me ready to swing (Patrick: swing what). Suffocation and Creeping Death fall under “Death Metal had a great 2023” label. Great stuff. Fires in the Distance scratch the melo-death itch that I feel hasn’t been satisfied for a few years.
Patrick: This grouping is the toughest for me so far. Creeping Death aside, I didn’t really fuck with any of this crap. I don’t like beatdown or deathcore. Move on, man (Andy: no it’s my list I won’t lol). Also, while I like death metal, Suffocation isn’t my favorite band in the world. They aren’t terrible, but they aren’t my speed. That’s okay, I still love my friend Andy. Creeping Death is good. I liked this album a lot, similar space to Jesus Piece and Sunami for me where it’s just outside of my honorable mentions.
Ulthar - Anthronomicon and Helionomicon
Agriculture - Agriculture
Turbid North - The Decline
Cryptopsy - As Gomorrah Burns
Primitive Rage - Enemies Left to Crush
Andy: I’m counting both Ulthar records as one because 1) I basically always listen to them in one go (Patrick: brother, this is INSANE) and 2) I can do whatever I want. Highly recommend and honestly probably too low on the first pass of this list. Agriculture killed it with their debut - I’m always a sucker for post-black-metal. Both Ulthar and Agriculture’s labels (20 Buck Spin and The Flenser) should win label of the year if that was a thing we did (Patrick: they both killed it, for sure). We wrote about Turbid North back in the spring, and it is still just as good. Primitive Rage is so goddamn good man. The snare! I have to imagine it is just chaos live. Only 24 minutes long! Go listen!
Patrick: Respect to Ulthar, that crap was too long for me but everything there was “good.” I haven’t spun the Turbid North record much since our Mid-Year recap, but it’s definitely good, as well. I told Andy I liked this Cryptopsy stuff more than their classics and he got pissed at me lol. Primitive Rage is one of my favorite first listens here - I love industrial music and infusing grind-death-whatever with industrial production is awesome. Also, shoutout Springfield, MO, wish bands like that were there when I was a 15-year-old dweeb in that town. I’ll talk more about Agriculture on Thursday.
Ragana - Desolation's Flower
Andy: I’ve covered Ragana in the past and they hit it out of the park with this record. A great blend of genres in a black metal container. Their best work to date. I love “Pain.”
Patrick: This record was a bit “disappointing” to me in that it doesn’t live up to some of their previous records, like 2017’s You Take Nothing, which we covered earlier in the year. However, like Andy said, “Pain” is incredible. One of the best metal songs this year.
Sanguisugabogg - Homicidal Ecstasy
Andy: Really solid death metal from the guys out of Ohio. I don’t know why they seem to get as much hate as they do online. It is dumb. Real thick, gross drums here. Excellent vocals, classic brutal death metal riffs. What’s not to love?
Patrick: I agree this band is fun. I don’t have much to say here. I liked this record but didn’t love it. There was better death metal this year and there was worse. Cool.
Man Must Die - The Pain Behind It All
Andy: IMO, one of the most underrated death metal bands around. It has been 10 years since their last record and they haven’t lost a step. Technical, melodic guitars with assaulting drums. I feel like most people don’t know or care about them and it’s always surprising to me.
Patrick: I cannot get over the fake ass drum sounds here. Good writing and cool riffs but come on (Andy: sorry it is too advanced for you)
Acacia Strain - Failure Will Follow
Andy: *Casually drops a double album while exploring sludge and makes one of the better records in a long time*
Long Live Acacia Strain. We don’t deserve them.
Patrick: Spoiler alert, this just narrowly missed my list and Andy is so mad at me about it. Every time I show him a song from my playlist for my AOTY list he texts me back “this isn’t as good as ‘Bog Walker.’” I like this record a lot. It’s very good. I love sludge.
None - Inevitable
Andy: I love None’s sound. I think he writes literally perfect songs. This album doesn’t differ much (at all?) from other efforts but I don’t really care. Best Atmospheric Black Metal in the game. He has this vibe nailed down, perfect, 10/10, no notes.
Patrick: Sunbather hit its tenth anniversary this year and this record, along with Agriculture’s, is the first time in the intervening ten years that I’ve felt remotely close to a black metal release as how I felt about that record at the time. Just incredible stuff.
Victory Over the Sun - Dance You Monster To My Soft Song
Andy: We covered Victory Over The Sun in the summer and my thoughts haven’t changed much. I think this takes a few listens to really absorb but once it clicks, it really clicks. I’m too dumb to understand the musical intricacies of what and why she is doing what she is doing but all I can tell you is it makes my dumb lizard brain feel very good.
Patrick: Another one I liked at the time but haven’t gone back to a ton. I just listen to so much Andy sends me through newsletter purposes that if it’s a metal release that doesn’t fully sink its hooks in me with the first few listens, it tends to fall by the wayside after the week we cover it ends. Nothing bad here, actually kinda remarkable stuff. I’ll have to revisit.
TELOS - Delude
Andy: I liked this record when I first heard it and then simply just kept listening to it all year. It quietly made my end-of-year top 5 most listened-to albums. What a banger of a debut. Incredible riffs, incredible “bleghs,” they got a lot going on and they do it all well.
Patrick: Feel the exact same about this as Victory Over the Sun. I’m a bit surprised this is so high for Andy. I would have guessed maybe Turbid North would be here and Telos would flip with it. Again, adding it to my list to revisit since we won’t have any new music for a few weeks.
Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
Andy: Definitely the “Death Metal Album of the Year” in a year when the genre was at its best in decades. Lives up to all of the hype it receives. Lots of progressive, spacy atmospheric parts with patented sick-ass-riffs and some of the best vocals around. I love the jazzy, clean influences. I know some death metal purists are annoyed at this direction but they’re simply wrong. Amazing death metal record.
Patrick: I’m sure friends of the newsletter, specifically our good bud Spencer, will roast me for not being in the know but Tomb Mold was my favorite heavy discovery of this year. Just an immaculate record. Again, I’ll say more on Thursday about this but this record is what got me fully invested in Death Metal.
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - Obsession Destruction
Andy: I called this my Album of the Year back in June and I was so close to being right. Just a behemoth of a record that does everything right. They are better than Thou, I won’t apologize. Insane vocals, insane riffs, just about as dirty as you can get.
Patrick: Sludge metal is so good when it’s good. I love this. Juuuuust missed my honorable mentions. Realistically should actually be on there. Going to be keeping an eye on this band for sure.
Anti-God Hand - Blight Year
Andy: It is very me to give my top spot to a black metal band during the year of death metal but I am who I am. Patrick came at me saying I was a poser for adding this and that I haven’t mentioned it all year but checked receipts to see I sent it to him 6 different times and he just ignored them like all of my other texts (Patrick: who is this?).
Blight Year from Anti-God Hand is a phenomenal black metal record. Perfect modern post-black metal. I ate this shit up. The vocals here - literally perfect. Fantastic riffs that mix the feeling of hopelessness and hope. Chaos and Tranquility. You get it. Easily my number one in a pretty great year. Building to be an all-timer of a record for me. Highly recommend!
Patrick: Wish Andy would have told me about this record even a single time this year. Probably would have made my list, if he did. Sucks that he didn’t (Andy: absolute idiot).