Posts tagged 40-21
40. Årabrot - "Of Darkness And Light"

Deliciously decadent post-punk from Norway. There is an enormous amount of world-building going on here as they construct a gothic other-world that borrows back influences from across the pound. They skilfully, and in a playful manner, combine Nordic and American folklores to create something that feels thoroughly timeless and at a distinct right angle to ordinary music.  

Kjetil Nernes is a consummate storyteller and the charm of “Of Darkness and Light” is that it is a collection of quirky tales that exists in some nether world that is neither dream nor reality. It is charming and exuberant but has enough bite to stop it being sickly or over-sweet. 

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39. In Flames - "Foregone"

adore In Flames and they always make it into my lists even if their recent releases have felt a bit directionless and lacking in musical clarity. This is a magnificent return to form that sees them re engage with the version of the band that shaped the melodic death metal sound all them moons ago.

It is a clean, crisp, and driving record that elegantly balances the fierce heaviness with seductive melody. It is full to the brim with bonafide anthems. BIG stomping tracks with soaring choruses and galloping guitar massages. Everything feels magnified and amplified. This is music to punch the air to.

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36. Primordial - "How It Ends"

This is stadium-level extreme metal. A massive booming record that revels in its bombastic rallying cries. The riffs are colossal and carve great swaths out of the scenery. 

Alan Averill (Nemtheanga to his nan) is a chest-beating rabble-rouser of a frontman. His delivery starts at eleven and just accelerates. His passionately raspy vocals utterly make this album, they have a depraved operatic feel to them. As if the vocal cords of a tenor were dipped into caustic acid. A splendidly overt album that doesn’t do anything by halves. 

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35. Blur - "The Ballad of Darren"


Let's be honest whilst Oasis eventually won the brit pop wars and have gone on to be a surrogate Beatles and the Stones for the millennial generation, Blur were always doing the interesting stuff. 

Every Blur album sounded different and saw them endeavouring to challenge themselves creatively by constantly shifting style and sound, whilst Oasis seemed happy to consistently recycle with diminishing returns in the quality department. 

Blur’s last attempted a comeback in 2015 with “Magic Whip”. It was, shall we say, rather muted as the album was terrible if I am honest. “The Ballad of Darren” sees them rediscover their collective musical mojo, creating a work of art that recalls them at their creative best but is also able to contribute new textures to their legacy. 

It is significantly not a retread of past glories, yes there are jaunty pop songs that recall the ‘Park Life’ era but there is also an air of faded glory about it. It is a reflective album that is not unafraid to be vulnerable and show its wounds. Damian has called it his “break-up album” and there is a noticeable atmosphere of reluctant acceptance and overt sadness.

Like the Stones album, this is Blur being Blur. But you soon realise that Blur were never about ladness and lager, no matter how closely associated they were to the jingoism of brit pop. Instead, Blur was and are an introspective art pop outfit, using solemn melody to tell tales from the heart. A marvellous return to form. 

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34. King Kracken - "MCLXXX"

This list spans 2023. It is made up of albums released in the frozen wastes of January ‘23 all the way to those that dropped in November. This album has been a stayer. Released on the 27th of January it has retained its place on the list because it has remained fresh and exciting every time, I have gone back to reevaluate it. 

It is a classic, balls to the wall, rock album. There is no nuance or niceties here. It is a stomping rock album that realises that simplicity is the best policy. It is as heavy, and it is catchy and it is entirely comfortable with the confines of the world that it lives in. High-octane rock n’ roll that pulls no punches and doesn’t want to be anything else. Just Gorgeous. 

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33. Godthrymm - "Distortions"

Refined Doom metal that leans in on the lilting melodies. This is a hypnotic album that avoids the doom’s usually thudding monotony. Instead, it majors on beautiful textures, creating an ethereal blanket of sumptuous sound.

It has a reflective warmth to it that both engages and envelopes the listener. The heaviness is there but it is restrained and very much relegated to the back of the room. Simultaneously sumptuous and haunting. 

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32. Bees Make Honey In The Vein Tree - "Aion"

Following soon after the best album name on the list we get the best band name. A distinctly odd album that has great fun mucking about with time signatures and sometimes forgetting they exist entirely. There are hundreds of alternating musical patterns here, all fluctuating at different frequencies. Just when you think you have figured out where it is going, it darts off in another direction entirely. 

It feels ambient and expansive but then it becomes spiky and insular. It is thoroughly bewildering but there is a beauty to its belligerence. I find myself soothed and battered and then jumping in for a second go!.

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31. Avenged Sevenfold - "Life Is But A Dream…"

It is bonkers how a commercial metal band as big as Avenged Sevenfold have managed to get away with producing something as overtly uncommercial as “Life is But a Dream….”. It is light years away from the previous material which was essentially slick reinterpretations of Metallica’s Black album.

This is a consciously inaccessible album that does everything in its power to make itself impenetrable. It refuses to contain anything that would even resemble a chant-alongable anthem and even when it falls back on something as conventional as versus and chorus, it inverts that by adding twinkly instrumentals. 

But there is a brilliance to its bonkers nature. It is a stunningly original album that blatantly ignores all the rules for Stadium-filling blockbusters and instead seeks to contradict all available conventions. This is an unrepentant act of career Harakiri and the Gaul and the determination of the band has to be applauded. 

The simple fact is, if this was an unknown act, we would be applauding this is a piece of art rock genius. However, as it has been produced by a band who are usually more vanilla than Mr Whippy, all we can do is stand around gawping at the wreckage. An astonishing album but more importantly an astonishingly defiant leap out of their comfort zone.

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30. The Devil's Trade - "Vid​é​kek Vannak Idebenn"

One of my finds of the year. It is a rare occurrence where I watch a live band blind, with no previous knowledge of the existence and no inclination of what they will sound like. Supporting Alcest earlier this year, Devils Trade utterly blew me away. They sculpted a unique sound that deftly combined the experimentation of post-rock with the dark contemplation of doom.

“Vidékek Vannak Idebenn” is an insular and bleak record that is warmed by the astonishing vocal range of Dávid Makó. This is yet another one-person outfit (anybody would think metal musicians were antisocial bastards) and Dávid has singularly crafted every single note and musical passion of this record.

It is minimal and slight in its approach but it also swells with heartfelt emotion. It is an astonishingly honest record that is aware of the dark recesses of the its own soul. Bleak but beautiful

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29. Jim Bob - "Thanks For Reaching Out"

 The post-Covid world has been one of rampant creativity for the man who made up 50% of indie cult heroes Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. This is his third album in four years, and he is carving out a veritable position as an unlikely voice of passive-aggressive protest. 

This is a very English angry album. It does not do anything as vulgar or direct as raising its voice, but it will happily make disapproving tuts behind the backs of those who have aggrieved it. What Jim Bob has retained from his Carter days it the ingrained ability to turn a phrase. The album is full of beautifully cultivated puns and lyrical couplets. It’s warm, caring and rather miffed with the current state of the world record but rather than make a fuss about it, its going hides its disdain in a plethora of cutting humorous lyrics.

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28. Zulu – "A New Tomorrow"

This is a magnificent album that manages to be crunchingly corrosive but also completely different to anything else you ever heard. It’s death metal that eloquently understands the heritage of its Afro-American creators. Influences from the worlds of soul, funk, and jazz many interesting bedfellows with deliciously brutal metal. 

Rather than intermingle, they exist in two diametric worlds that exist together in cacophonous harmony on the record. We switch from one dimension to another with incessant frequency. It is the use of musical forms of black origin (to be honest as a direct offshoot of the blues, rock music is as much of black origin as hip hop) that gives this album its unique identity. Bewilderingly brilliant.

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27. Cattle Decapitation - "Terrasite"

There have been an awful lot of variations on metal on this list and I have used the words dark and contemplative a hell of a lot. What we have had is less meat and potato communal garden nasty heavy metal. Well here comes American death metal legends Cattle Decapitation to do some heavy lifting in that particular direction.

This is grinding heaviness personified. It is an absolute brute of an album. It is a relentless pounding affair that never lets up. The guitars are like a chorus of raging chainsaws and the drumming is utterly insane. There is a bewitching beauty to primal heaviness and this is an ecstatically wonderful example of the majesty of really well-done death metal.

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26. Wilco - "Cousin"

Ahh Wilco. I have a lot of history with this band. They are the reason why am with my wife. We started courting via the medium of Guardian soulmates and in her reply to my ad she listed Wilco’s rather spiffing 2004 classic “A Ghost Is Born” as her album of the previous year. Well, at least that was what I thought.

A crackly line caused by her having doused her phone with perfume meant that I misheard her declare that Placebo’s “Living with the Ghost” was a record of 2004. If I had realised she was referring to Brian Moloko’s overengineered angst, I would have never got in contact!! 

To call this a return to form would do a great disservice for a band that diligently hasn’t dropped in quality over the years. Essentially it is I who has done the wandering off and, on my return, they are still producing high-quality Americana. 

“Cousin” is a rich and reflective record that is neither melancholic nor euphoric. It walks a really interesting line that is brimming with passion but also markedly restrained. What it is though is sumptuously beautiful. The musicianship is always exquisite, and Wayne Tweedy has such a way with melody. This is Wilco Continuing to be Wilco and they do it wonderfully.

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25. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - "PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation"

Over the years, we have had plenty of examples on this list of metal bands making non-metal albums, Leprous and Ulver are cases in point. This is however the inverse. This is a firmly psychedelic indie band (hailing from down under) making an unashamed heavy metal album. 

Now King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are so blooming prolific that the law of averages means that they were going to get around to metal at some point (on a good year they have been known to release four albums). 

However, what is refreshingly surprising is that this is not a cynical cash in nor is it a derivative facsimile of a musical type. This is a bonafide stonking good grinding metal album that shows that the band knows their Lamb of God from their Killswitch Engage. In many ways, this is the album that I wanted Metallica to make. It is urgent, it is minimal, and it frizzles with vibrant energy. 

It skilfully avoids playing to type and instead, it embraces the wonderous wonder of heavy music’s many textures and varieties. It gets its spot on that metal is not just noise. Yes, it brims with aggressive power, but it also realises that vulnerability plays a crucial role. An unexpected highlight of my listening year.

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24. Myrkur - "Spine"

Myrkur is the pseudonym of Danish songstress Amalie Bruun. This is her return to metal after six years out to have a baby and to delve into Nordic folk. However, she is not returning to the dense black metal of old.

This is a predominantly ethereal Gothic metal record that places her bewitching voice centre stage. It is intoxicatingly atmospheric and feels like the perfect middle ground between her folk and black metal personas. It oozes with quality and whilst the musicianship is utterly stunning it’s the exquisite nature of her voice that sticks with you long after the record is finished

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23. Skálmöld - "Ýdalir"

Frantic folk metal done with stunning finesse. This is a bouncy and buoyant joy to behold. Yes, it doesn’t bring anything new to the party but actually, when it is this enjoyable does it need to be treading in any virgin territory? 

Hailing from Iceland this is jaunty Nordic folk expertly spliced with strident traditional metal. The balance between the two is perfectly measured. It exudes potent energy and is one of those records you find yourself humming along with even when you don’t know the songs. Unashamedly exuberant I just loved the heady happiness of this record.

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22. The Night Eternal - "Fatale"

Named after the Moonspell album this is a fantastic exercise in Gothic revival from Germany. It feels like they’ve spent a good chunk of time listening to old Sisters, Mission, Bauhaus and Rose of Avalon albums and then distilled all they have heard into one record.

It is distinctly reverential, but it is also wonderfully forward-thinking. This is not just an exercise in pure nostalgia, this is an attempt to make Goth relevant in 2023. It realises that Goth wasn’t just about shameless atmospherics and good goth relied on tiptop songwriting. When Goth was at his best was when it was shamelessly rubbing itself up against pop and Night Eternal realise this in absolute spades. 

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21. Downfall of Gaia - "Silhouettes Of Disgust"

A stunningly inventive and evocative record. It uses black metal as is launchpad, but it very soon leaves the limited confides of that genre well behind. It is a magical haunting affair that is rich with ethereal texture. It contains moments of blazing heaviness, but they are linked by fragile passages of musical beauty. It manages to be simultaneously stirring and contemplative. A unique and hypnotic record that offers something completely new on each listen. 

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