Better late than never: The Best of the Last of 2023

I have always found that publishing “best of the year” music album lists in late November and early December a criminal act – especially with the wealth of awesome albums released in those months that get overlooked. As a most poignant illustration, allow me to remind the reader of SZA’s amazing SOS was released on December 9, 2022. Arguably the best album of 2022, SOS was left off the majority of the 2022 best-of lists (many of which were published before the album release). As a cop out, both Pitchfork and Rolling Stone placed SOS on their best of 2023 lists (at the top). It’s a lame practice, and I don’t understand it. I would argue that a more practical and satisfying exercise would be for the music critical community to require all year end best-of-lists be published at the actual end of the fucking year (like on New Year’s Day). That would allow for all the best music from November and December to marinate with the holiday roast beast and mold wine while further reflecting on all that was great during the year. This revolutionary practice would also give new music obsessives, such as myself, stuff to read about and catch up on during the January release abyss (and lazy editors the justification for lagging on website posting timelines). Am I right, or what?

In terms of my music consumption process, the albums of the last two months of any given year tend to get lost, largely amidst the anticipation of the musical release newness of the coming year and my thirst to catch up with albums and artists that I missed over the year (thanks, of course, to AOTY lists). With this gripe in mind, I present a “best of the last two months of the year” list to offer the appropriate justice and consideration for those artists dropping great shit super late. I have curated the list with the trends of 2023 in mind, reflecting on the genres that stood out and how they received extra emphasis at the end of the year. With that, I offer twelve blurbs on what was great, late (with about 8 more “honorables” tacked on to the end). Better late than never bitches.

12. Vantage Point – Against Myself

2023 was such an amazing year for hardcore, with awesome releases from Scowl, Gel, Initiate, and Drain (among others), that I felt I should add one of the last blast releases from the genre to the top of my list. Against Myself from Boston’s Vantage Point is the one. Made up of dudes who have played for various hardcore bands in Beantown over the years, the group finally managed to release a debut (after a string of EPs). Against Myself offers a speedy exploration through intense riffage in its guitars, rhythmic punchiness in its rhythms, and straight edginess in its anthems. The title track kicks off a brilliant triptych comprising the latter third (and best sequence) of the album. The desperate lyrical tone of singer Russell Campot’s reflection on bad choices and adversity in “Against Myself” recalls Suicidal Tendencies’ Mike Muir begging his mother to fetch him a Pepsi in 1983. “Tired of Looking Back” follows with towering metal riffs supporting Campot’s vocal while the album closes on the anthemically aggressive “Swear.” Against Myself represents the ideal hardcore coda for the year – here’s hoping there is more freshness to come for the style of punk rock in 2024 (I’ll take a full length from Scowl, please!).

11. There Will Be Fireworks – Summer Moon

I had never heard of this veteran Scottish outfit previously and happened randomly upon the band’s early November release. My immediate attraction to Summer Moon was in the way it recalls the melodic, emotive northern UK alternative/indie rock of Snow Patrol and Frightened Rabbit. Summer Moon is evidently a long time in the making given that its predecessor, The Dark, Dark Bright, was released in 2013. I have no idea about the sound of that album (which evidently possesses a passionate, nostalgic fan base in Scotland) or TWBF’s debut, but Summer Moon offers an amalgam of heartland style rock with the emotional weight of the Scottish indie scene. “Love Comes Around” and “Our Lady of Sorrows” exemplifies this style with the former tune recalling Snow Patrol’s “Run” while the latter could be the eleventh track from The Gaslight Anthem’s latest album, History Books. There is a lot to like in the collection of songs with a runtime exceeding 50 minutes. Fans have reacted to the release of Summer Moon like a comeback album from a massive classic rock band reuniting for one last blast. I’m pleased I caught them before their return to the archives of Scottish rock.

10. Jaakko Eino Kalevi – Chaos Magic

The album cover portraying a lanky European dude standing awkwardly in a forest wearing a white suit holding a sword expresses everything one needs to know about Chaos Magic. This blurb marks my second public engagement with the rather odd album from Finnish psych pop artist Jaakko Eino Kalevi. And I continue to grapple with my astonishment over its sheer kitschy-ness while admiring the album’s risks and earnestness. For most of the record’s runtime, Kalevi’s lyrics and musical arrangements appear to appropriate from the clumsiest of bargain bin 1980s Europop. Chaos Magic meanders along the more bizarre side of late 70s & early New Wave synth. I’m thinking Devo sans the irony (“Dino’s Deo”) with interludes into disco (“Galactic Romance”), cosmic jazz (“Chaos Magic”), and low budget 80s movie soundtracks (“Palace in My Head”). The loungy title track and opening cut suggests very little of what follows in the next 62 minutes. Alas, the follow up, “Drifting Away” doubles down on the lyrical eccentricity and sincere yet oddball musical style offering a more accurate signpost for what’s ahead. My little essay here might suggest total disdain for the album – Au contraire mon frère!. Chaos Magic might fall into the category of “its so bad its good,” but I am helplessly addicted to the strange collection of tunes. Like losing one’s restraint while staring helplessly into a calamitous multi-car crash, I just can’t turn away from Chaos Magic.

9. Wiki – 14K Figaro

Wiki’s 14K Figaro caught me in a similar manner to billy woods + Kenny Segal’s amazing Maps. Just like Maps, 14KFirgaro plays like an opus, with creative cool twists and turns in the production that are fresh, sometimes creepy, and occasionally amusing. What elevates the album above most of the alternative hip hop I listened to this year, though, is the production from Tony Seltzer (similarly suggesting comparisons to Segal’s production in Maps). 14K Figaro is the kind of release providing pleasing new discoveries buried in its dense production. Definitely a work of serious NYC-influenced hip hop/trap, the album is laced with frequently placed odes to the City and Brooklyn (vis-a-vis Seltzer’s production), including clips from Italiano gangster flicks, dense cultural references, and Wiki’s hard New York accent. “Fried Ice Cream” featuring Zelooperz (and the best feature of the album) is among my favorite cuts, showcasing the guest rapper’s erratic vocal swings. I also love “Golden Child” (in which Wiki almost succeeds with a harmonized vocal) and the messy, soul-based “Weed Song” that nearly closes out the record. Although I enjoy consuming alternative hip hop, much of it is hit or miss with me – Wiki’s collab with MIKE and The Alchemist earlier in the year represented a big swing and a whiff. Fortunately, 14K Figaro knocks it out of the Polo Grounds and represents one of my favorite rap albums of the year.

8. Full of Hell/Nothing – When No Birds Sing

I often find Full of Hell’s standalone albums, and grindcore generally, a little difficult to engage due to the brief runtimes of most compositions. For me, Full of Hell is likely the most interesting among the list of various grindcore acts due to their tendency to collaborate with seemingly disparate bands (the album, Ascending the Mountain with Heavy, their second album with black metal experimentalists The Body, is probably my favorite work from Full of Hell to date). Such are the circumstances with When no Birds Sing – an intriguing collab with left-of-center shoegazers, Nothing. Nothing is literally nothing like Full of Hell, at least sonically, but the mood they emit perhaps suggests fleeting resemblances. Nevertheless, the partnership of the two bands makes for a fascinating listen, as the fusion of their respective vibes functions to soften and expand Full of Hell’s typical spurts of chaos into intense restraint. My favorite cut on When No Birds Sing is the single “Spend the Grace” – the song represents one of the louder moments on the record and exemplifies the conceptual dimension of the collection, serving as the back bookend to the likewise heavy album opener, “Rose Tinted World.” What happens in between the two cuts is an assemblage of oscillations from heavy to drowsy peaks and valleys, amounting to my favorite heavy music album of 2023.

7. PinkPantheress – Heaven knows

Among the albums that could be filed under “dance pop” in 2023, Heaven knows ranked as my favorite for being the grooviest and most pleasing while offering some vintage drum & bass and breakbeats to raise it above the various dance pop records I consumed over the year (including decent albums from Ellie Goulding, Ava Max, and Kylie Minogue – among others). Having risen via song snippets on TikTok, the artist identifying herself as PinkPantheress strikes me as a normal English kid suddenly thrust into massive public notoriety. That elevation is certainly well-deserved though because her full-length debut here is an impressive achievement.

I appreciate the production choices on the album for softening the short-but-sweet tracks of prior releases and video clips into sophisticated retro pop tracks like the standout song “Capable of love.” The features of Heavan knows also payoff on the setlist – the grimy, West London trap of Central Cee in the tune “Nice to meet you” is blast, as is Rema’s contribution in opening track “Another life” (I honestly could take or leave Ice Spice’s work happening in the quite popular remix single, “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”). As a serious glutton of trendy new music, Heaven knows’ heavy rotations on my Spotify account provoke me to finally activate my TikTok app (but probably not).

6. HEALTH – RAT WARS

HEALTH is an edgy, cool band that has made a few twists and turns through heavy music genres throughout their run, so much so that I have never been able to pin them down. They seemed to settle into an industrial metal vibe beginning with 2015’s Death Magic, but HEALTH later delivered a mix of diverse-sounding collaborations with artists as diverse as Poppy to JPEGMAFIA through a string of albums during the COVID years. HEALTH’s latest, RAT WARS surfaced as a very nice addition to the big final album release week of 2023 and returns the band squarely to industrial metal. Heavy industrial dance music is a genre I was obsessed with in the early 90s in college, and RAT WARS pleasantly reminds me of that sound, with its combination of 80s goth and (especially) 90s industrial. The synth line in “HATEFUL” resembles a Front 242 industrial dance club anthem. And the driving percussion and heavy guitar of “CRACK METAL” and “DSM-V” conjure peak Ministry with their run of albums from 1988 to 1999. RAT WARS soars at its highest though when chugging out emotive and grinding industrial grooves most profoundly in the track “ASHAMED.” Listening to an album that brings me back to stomping around German dancefloors to Front 242’s “Headhunter” in 1991 is such a beautiful thing.

5. Myke Towers – LVEU: VIVE LA TUYA…NO LA MIA

Myke Towers represents my favorite reggaeton discovery for 2023 (disregard the point that I missed this multiplatinum selling global artist until now). Packed with a ton of tunes, LVEU: VIVE LA TUYA…NO LA MIA is Towers’ second release of year (his March release, La Vida Es Una, clocked in at over seventy minutes and 23 songs). Similarly, LVEU logs over an hour of music with a seemingly never-ending playlist. Sure, Towers’ collective work over the year was certainly bloated. Yet, sorting through it all lends itself to the discovery of some absolute gems scattered through the two releases. “OBVIO” kicks off the November release by firmly establishing Towers’ hip hop cred with an invigorating trap confection. The first half of the record provides a rotation of standard reggaeton fare, but at roughly its midpoint the album hits a boiling point with the meringue flavored “LA CAPI.” From there LVEU is peppered with an array of remarkable songs including the ballad “RDC,” sentimental reggaeton of “DEDICANDOME,” and a reprise of his global number one hit, “LALA.” The album saves the best for last (I think) concluding with the gloriously good salsa-inspired tune “LA RONDA.” LVEU is an exhausting amount of music and reading song titles in all caps hurts my head. There is a lot to like, at least, and I could pick out all my favorites from the two 2023 releases to comprise one super tight “Young King” 30-minute playlist.

4. Tkay Maidza – Sweet Justice

I’m a huge fan of female rappers who veer a bit from the edge of massive pop appeal and conventions. And this year offered some great releases from women in hip hop (with Noname’s resplendent comeback album, Sundial, reigning as the best illustration). Tkay Maidza is a new artist for me, but the early November release, Sweet Justice, arose as one of my favorite rap releases of 2023. I find hip hop at its best when rappers experiment with a range of genres (and sing) in their compositions. Sweet Justice delivers the juice with an array of sounds, including conventional R&B (“Out of Luck”), pop (“Walking on Air”), dance/electronic (“Ghost!”), and straight up creepiness (check out the disturbing video for “WUACV”). I find myself most attracted to Maidza’s pop tendencies on the album – “Out of Luck” featuring vocals from a personal fave R&B artist, Amber Mark, is the disc’s highlight. I have tickets to see Maidza’s tour in a small venue in Denver which will likely be my last chance to experience this artist in an intimate setting before her shit breaks big.

3. Bar Italia – The Twits

This enigmatic London trio has received tons of popularity from live audiences and Spotify listeners in 2023, and I gave their first real full-length album, Tracy Denim, released back in May, a serious listen. That album was not really a standout for my tastes. However, with the strength of the banging opening cut from Bar Italia’s second release of the year, “my little tony,” I was immediately intrigued with The Twits, finding several tracks more accessible than those of its predecessor. Bar Italia’s music is challenging (some might say sluggish, aloof, or even cryptic), and The Twits is the sort of album that takes several rotations to properly assess its value. With their gothy vibe and moody vocal delivery, comparisons to the Cure seem obvious (I mean, gee whiz, the guitar chord jangling through the song “sounds like you had to be there” appears to be a slowed down, distorted version of the Cure’s “Pictures of You”). Nevertheless, there are some great songs on The Twits showcasing the unique interplay of all three band mates’ distinctive voices. “worlds greatest emoter,” “Jelsy,” and “Hi fiver,” represent the peaks of the set, but there are interesting surprises throughout. Returning to Tracy Denim via the lens of The Twits makes for a much more entertaining listen of the band’s first release of 2023.

2. Hotline TNT – Cartwheel

Wow! A shoegaze album I actually really like. With all of the excitement over the revivals from classic shoegaze bands like Slowdive, Drop Nineteens, Emma Anderson (from Lush), and Blond Redhead, I find Hotline TNT’s 2023 release to offer a more refreshing, energetic examination of the genre. Regarding shoegaze, Mike Bingham from Spiritual Cramp said it best this year in a  Brooklyn Vegan best-of-year list with the statement: “The whole genre gives a snake eating its tail who just graduated from a private liberal arts college vibes.” I’m not sure what that means yet, but the notion of shoegaze music serving as a creative outlet for white privileged 20-somethings is fucking hilarious somehow. The melodious second cut of the album, “I Thought You’d Change,” provides the first nudge that Cartwheel is a level up from the usual shoegaze fare. It just gets better from there. My favorite cut on the record, “Spot me 100,” offers a super cool rhythmic surprise to what initially seems a shoegaze standard vibe by supplying a drum & bass beat and record scratching midway through. Leaning more into shoegaze power pop (with lots of great lyrical hooks) than shoegaze dream rock, Cartwheel makes a case that atmospheric music need not compromise the adrenaline production of exciting rock.

1. Spiritual Cramp – Spiritual Cramp

“You are now watching Spiritual Cramp television.” I was lucky enough to discover the mayhem of Spiritual Cramp as a supporting band for the Teenage Wrist tour this fall (and will see them again, this time with Militarie Gun, in February). I had heard a few of the band’s pre-release singles before the show and dug the tunes’ catchy hooks. The band’s highly energetic 30-minute set (accompanied by an old TV placed in the middle of the stage with their logo spray painted across the screen) was likely my favorite live music experience of 2023 and left me highly anticipating the November release of this album. Spiritual Cramp (the album) didn’t disappoint, delivering the chaotic energy from the band’s live set. The record’s sound oscillates between punk and party rock, with some nice dubby effects thrown in courtesy of turntablist (and lights out tambourine player during the live set) Jose-Luna Gonzalez. Singer, Michael Bingham, is a loveable thug and the cuts on this tight 26-minute album convey his rugged appeal as a San Francisco punk. The album is anchored with sentimental banger “Herberts on Holiday,” referencing Bingham’s relationship with his wife. But there is plenty more to carry the festivities forward including a chastisement of social media excess “Talkin’ on the Internet” and the raucous vigor of “Better off This Way” (a song that sizzles in its live iteration). Spiritual Cramp is technically the band’s debut, but the collection arrives as a fully formed concept from a group of artists who totally understand what their project is and should be. “You are now watching Spiritual Cramp Television.”

Honorable Mentions to round out my list to a clean and tidy 20

20. Chris Stapleton – Higher

I love Chris Stapleton’s massive popularity in the Country Music world because his sophisticated, soulful country rock bucks the trend of superficial top 40 bro country (à la Jason Aldean). Fave tune: Higher’s lead single “White Horse” is simply epic.

 

 

 

 

19. Aesop Rock – Integrated Tech Solutions

I always appreciate an Aesop Rock joint, and this lyrical trip through tech consumerism of the 80s is a blast (at least most of it – the album is longgggg). Fave tune – “Aggressive Steven” is a song about a home invasion sounding like something DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince would have served up in 1988. Do we really have to call this stuff “dad rap” though?

 

 

 

18. Emeli Sandé – How Were We to Know

I’ve had a big heart for this Scottish soul singer since she debuted back in 2012. After some massive popularity and then a period of critical stagnation, How Were We to Know represents Sandé’s further sojourn into independent album releases with a mix of pop, R&B, and dance cuts. Fave tune: “There for You” channel’s Sandé’s inner Whitney Houston.

 

 

 

17. Witching Wave – Streams and Waterways

The collection of scrappy post-punk tunes is packed with hooks, crunchy guitar riffs, and feminine + masculine dual vocals. Fave tune: “Chemistry” is a garage rock scramble that closes the feisty album.

 

 

 

 

 

16. Treaty Oak Revival – Have a Nice Day

A little southern fried rock is a really great thing, and this West Texas band delivers some clever sing-along lyrics backed with scorching guitar work. Fave tune: The sharp wordplay found in the chorus of “In Between,” “I put up a hell of a fight just to get caught right up in the middle of the in between” packs a sophisticated good ole boy punch.

 

 

 

15. Othiel – We Will be Our Home

I think screamo is a lame title for a music genre, but whatever it is exactly, Othiel executes the style incredibly well. I’m not sure if this was the band’s intent, but the album cover disturbingly recalls that creepy unintended scene from Three Men and a Baby. Fave song: the complexity of “Treasures” in the song’s creamy center featuring a pounding metallic riff followed with a stunning melodic passage is the most beautiful thing I’ve heard in a screamo song, ever.

 

 

14. Empty Country – Empty Country II

Empty Country II represents a seriously ambitious swing by Cymbals Eats Guitars frontman Joseph D’Agostino . The entire record has the feel of an antique concept album and reminds me of something that Bob Geldof would orchestrate via the Boomtown Rats. Fave tune: “Erlking,” a song whose subject is a sinister German elf prods a reminder of the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012 in its opening stanza.

 

 

13. Dowsing – No One Said This Would be Easy

Emo had its towering moments in 2023 and the cagey veteran band Dowsing’s December release offered a pleasant nightcap. Fave tune: I really enjoy the vocal interplay of “Being Real,” exemplifying what can generate the uniqueness of an emo song.

 

 

 

 

I also really liked (in no particular order):

Danny Brown – Quaranta; Bas Jan – Back to the Swamp; Pure Bathing Culture – Chalice; Elzhi/Oh No – Heavy Vibrato; Gaby’s World – Gaby Sword