10 great albums from 2023
Drain | Witching Waves | Yves Tumor
It’s been a banner year for punk, hardcore, indie and metal, with fantastic releases across all the genres making my albums of the year list.
Maybe it’s a post, post-Covid thing, but there was just so much good music released in 2023, and the drip feed of everyone’s albums of the year lists added to that by reminding me of some of the records I missed the first time around.
Combing through the albums I bought, those I downloaded on Spotify to contemplate buying and the ones that caught my eye on year-roundup lists from the likes of Stereogum, Consequence and Kerrang and were earmarked for future purchase, gave me a long list of about 60 albums.
I narrowed that down to my 10 favourite records of the year.
But I cheated.
Twice.
First, with High Vis.
High Vis - Society Exists / Stationhouse Demos
My absolute favourite release of the year was High Vis’ Society Exists / Stationhouse Demos. I played the four-song EP so much on Spotify this year that its tracks occupied positions one through four on my most streamed tracks list.
Quietly released in a super limited edition of just 200 copies, it’s actually just a clearing-of-the-decks by the UK post-punk band, recorded shortly after the release of their 2019 debut album No Sense No Feeling and just before the Covid lockdowns hit.
The 7” includes an early version of ‘Fever Dream’, which would turn up on 2022’s Blending, but it’s lead track ‘Down to You’ that ranks among the best they’ve ever done.
Taken together they provide a perfect entry point to High Vis’ post-punk by way of hardcore, foregrounding their Manchester/Britpop influences. On the Society Exists / Stationhouse Demos that takes the form of adding a synth-driven edge to their gritty punk (and, on ‘The Loss’, a guitar solo that New Order might want back). More recently they had the chutzpah to open their set at Manchester’s Outbreak festival with a cover of ‘Morning Glory’, looking like the sort of band Liam Gallagher imagines he used to be in).
• Buy: High Vis - Society Exists / Stationhouse Demos (iTunes, Amazon Music)
Drain - Living Proof
Now to the first of my unordered 10 great albums from 2023 and an album that’s on Epitaph Records and sounds like it should be on Epitaph.
The hardcore band and their thrash metal stylings update the crossover thrash template, giving it a fun three-dimensional sound. They also play a similar trick to Scowl’s ‘Seeds to Sow’, sneaking a clean vocaled ‘pop’ song on a hardcore album - in Drain’s case it’s a Descendents cover and a super-charged pop-punk version of ‘Good Good Things’.
• Buy: Drain - Living Proof (Bandcamp)
Witching Waves - Streams and Waterways
The UK post-punk trio’s fourth album is their most accomplished record to date, stuffed to the gills with cleverly executed memorable tunes - as I wrote at length earlier this week in my review for Punktuation.
• Buy: Witching Waves - Streams and Waterways (Bandcamp)
Yves Tumor - Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
The reviews say Prince or David Bowie, but it’s TV on the Radio that the album’s standout track ‘Operator’ reminds me of, with the American experimental musician throwing in Faith No More lines for good measure.
If this is neo-psychedelia, and if that’s a thing, then I’m all for it.
• Buy: Yves Tumor - Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (Bandcamp)
Fucked Up - One Day
The Canadian post-hardcore band’s sixth album blends Damian Abraham’s gravelly voice with an ensemble cast for anthemic fun. Written and recorded in one day in Toronto, so the legend goes, One Day feels like it would be perfectly suited for a theatre staging, though it came across just as well when I saw them in London last month supported by Off! at the Camden Underworld.
• Buy: Fucked Up - One Day (Bandcamp)
Christine and the Queens - Paranoia, Angels, True Love
A sprawling 20-track, triple album with understated guest spots from Madonna that is Chris’ most ambitious release so far and one in which Prince comparisons wouldn’t be wide of the mark. There’s delightfully off-kilter pop, the piano swoon of ‘Flowery Days’ and the thumping vulnerability of ‘To Be Honest’.
• Buy: Christine and the Queens - Paranoia, Angels, True Love (Bandcamp)
Snuff - Come And Have A Go If You Think You're Rachmaninoff
An acoustic album from the often-underestimated pop-hardcore-ska-Motown punks. Acoustic albums - particularly one like this that leans on past material - could easily be throwaway releases, but Snuff’s thoughtful reworkings of past glories ramp up the pathos that lurks just below the surface, and sometimes above it, in their best work. (Another stupid title, mind.)
• Buy: Snuff - Come And Have A Go If You Think You're Rachmaninoff (Bandcamp)
Buggin - Concrete Cowboys
The Chicago band are the crest of a wave of talent being released by Flatspot at the moment. Tracks like ‘Poser Bulldozer’ and ‘All Eyes on You’ are furiously fun hardcore punk rock.
• Buy: Buggin - Concrete Cowboys (Bandcamp)
Militarie Gun - Life Under the Gun
The LA-based post-hardcore band are on a mission and they’re not messing around with this debut album that sets a new standard for melodic post-hardcore (read more in my review for Punktuation)
• Buy: Militarie Gun - Life Under the Gun (Bandcamp)
Svalbard - The Weight of the Mask
The metal band with hardcore roots, or the hardcore band playing metal, had seemed like they were settling into the UK’s answer to Deafheaven on their landmark blackgaze third album When I Die, Will I Get Better? but The Weight of the Mask has a more direct mission. Their first release for new label Nuclear Blast Records, The Weight of the Mask is a lyrically-direct roar against the demons of depression.
• Buy: Svalbard - The Weight of the Mask (Bandcamp)
Bruise Control - Useless for Something
Manchester, UK DIY punk label TNSrecords has been a bit quieter than usual with its releases this year, but they’ve still found time to put out some great punk rock, including Bruise Control’s debut album. The four-piece started with garage punk, knocked it about with a 2x4 of 80s hardcore and then 00s indie enters the chat. Sometimes political, sometimes personal, always rollicking good fun.
Buy: Bruise Control - Useless for Something (Bandcamp)
Plus two more…
That’s 10 great albums (and one superb EP) from 2023.
Except it’s not, because I needed two more albums to get the image above into the right dimensions.
So, I cheated. For the second time.
Adding to the 10 great albums (and one superb EP) from 2023, I’d also pick from my long list the ever-prolific Japanese sludge/drone/noise rock band Boris and their collaboration with US industrial metal/noise rock band Uniform. Giving Boris a more hardcore edge, Bright New Disease is a hallucinogenic shot of adrenaline administered with a rusty syringe. (Buy on Bandcamp.)
That just leaves the doomy electronic comedown of Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, whose The Nation's Most Central Location is a downbeat elegy for a future that never came. (Buy on Bandcamp.)
But there’s no room to include Hüsker Dü’s double live album of 1979/1980 sets Tonite Longhorn, which doesn’t feel like a good fit for a best new albums list, great though it is. In any case I’ve already written about it on Fire Red Sky in October.
The same, in as much as having already written about it, goes for Public Service Broadcasting’s This New Noise.
And I’ve just not lived long enough with albums by Hotline TNT, The Iron Roses, Mutoid Man, Year of the Knife, Domkraft, Clark, Green Lung, boygenius, Wednesday, Temples, Fireworks to make up my mind about them - but perhaps that’s what the holiday season is for.
So, this is the last issue of Fire Red Sky for 2023. The newsletter will be back bright and early on 2 January 2024 for your regular Tuesday instalments.