This is the last blog of 2023, and as I’ve done every year since 2012, it’s a roundup of the records that came out this year that got me through this year. I write this for me, not for you really; it’s a sort of almanac of the last decade or so. You might point out that I could do that without publishing a blog on it, and to that I would politely point out that there’s no point in spending an absolute f***tonne on a new website if I can’t fill it with crap, and also that I hear yer da has got a new job critiquing web content.
It hasn’t been an amazing year for music and me, but there are enough good’uns to make a list. It strikes me there are few if any new artists on this; I don’t know if I’m just getting crusty in my listening habits or what. Anyway.
10. SOEN – MEMORIAL
This is the worst Soen record for a long time, but it still wormed its way into my addled brain and lived rent-free there for much of the year. Probably helped by seeing them live for the first time; a gig I’ll remember for years, or at least the parts of it before wine kicked in. Who drinks wine at a gig? Idiot. This record is also my disappointment of the year, which just goes to show how thrillingly complicated I am.
9. SLOWDIVE – everything is alive
Not often a band can come back from the dead and put out a record that simultaneously sounds like what you used to love and something that’s actually made now. This is one of those.
8. JAMES YORKSTON, NINA PERSSON AND THE SECONDHAND ORCHESTRA – THE GREAT WHITE SEA EAGLE
Regular readers of this pish will know the rule that if James Yorkston releases something it goes on the list. Them’s the rules. Happily, this collaboration – a follow up to 2021’s The Wide Wide River – is lovely and well worth a place in the List Ov Destiny.
7. FIRES IN THE DISTANCE – AIR NOT MEANT FOR US
Oooh, this is good. Lots of juicy heavy stuff, piano synthy bits, doomy pace, over-the-top spoken word samples. Exactly the thing you need when you need this sort of thing.
6. KING CREOSOTE – I DES
Do you say it ‘Ides’ or ‘Aye, Des” like you’re humouring Desmond Lynam? I don’t know, but this is a very good record anyway which I’ve listened to more and more as the year fades away. I’ve got a very soft spot for Kenny Anderson, not least because a live performance of From Scotland With Love was the last thing I went to just before lockdown started – 7 March 2020 – and I don’t have anything like the language to describe what that was like.
5. KVELERTAK – ENDLING
This is the most fun thing I listened to this year. It’s sort of a mix of metal, rock, punk, other stuff and it has Riffs, oh my goodness yes. Absolutely one to cheer you up. Also: the singer does everything in Norwegian and the song titles are in Norwegian too so he may as well be singing about having herring for tea or his favoured toenail clipping strategies. I care not. Top 5!
4. PETER GABRIEL – I/O
I really thought I’d hate this, because unless Gabriel releases something that can hold a candle to Us then I’m not on board. But guess what? I/O does and is pretty much faultless. Anyone who doesn’t like this is simply Wrong.
3. LANKUM – FALSE LANKUM
I’ve banged on about this record in the Update, and it was record o’ the year in the Grauniad. Here it gets the third spot, only because I didn’t listen to it as much as the first two. But hooooooft this is a thing of absolute genius. The heaviest non-heavy record you may ever hear. Watch the embed all the way through.
2. KATATONIA – SKY VOID OF STARS
I kind of knew Katatonia in the same way as just about anyone who listens to heavy music knows Katatonia; they’ve been around for a gajillion years and they used to be a lot better than they are now. Turns out the new record is Katatonia reborn minus all the bad bits. All bangers, all the time, for a given value of ‘banger’.
1. INSOMNIUM – ANNO 1696
Is the list topped by Finnish melodeath? Why, yes! There’s a surprise. Actually, I didn’t fall in love with this straight away but it kept me coming back. White Christ and Lillian are right up there with the best songs of this genre ever.
And that’s that. Gig of the year was Soen, probably, closely followed by Halestorm which was my first gig proper with the lang kitten v1.0.
And if you are really bored, below are all the other albums of the year lists, mainly to prove that the search function on the site works.
Happy New Year, same time in 2024?
Yes.
