Best of 2023

 1) Afterbirth - In But Not Of

I love brutal death metal bands... in the way that one loves corndogs. They're tasty and non-serious. You're never going to encounter an outstanding corndog, it'll just handily hit the spot now and again. Nothing too memorable or exciting. This is exactly why Afterbirth is sitting in #1 this year. This is an outstanding brutal death metal album, memorable, even profound at times. This album is the haute cuisine corndog that should not exist.

So what variables have Afterbirth tweaked in order to create such an excellent example of brutal death metal. Attributes like atmosphere, composition, pacing come to mind and while I could wax on about how these particular elements are unique here, I'd be doing the album a disservice in dissection. This is so special to me simply because I've never heard anything like it and it's so much fun to listen to. I'll be bopping my head to churning passages of gore-grind, and then all the disembodied guts will get caught in this multi-dimensional vortex in deep space. The balances of brutality and Zen on display here are truly remarkable. 

I was thinking for a moment this year that it's possible other young upstarts will listen to this and take note, be inspired to carry this sub-sub-sub-genre into something that blossoms, but I came to the eventual conclusion this is unlikely. I honestly think it takes a very unique set of individuals to harmonize violence and transcendence and this record and this band may occupy their niche alone for some time. As long as they keep writing this is fine by me.

Best of 2023

 2) Saturnus - The Storm Within

Nostalgia should be able to bring you just so far toward happiness or contentment. The reminder of a past beautiful moment is not a new beautiful moment, it's the awareness of a reverberating echo that fades over time. This reality gets complicated when a band who's been silent for 10+ years reignites a genre of music that has largely been forgotten. This record could have easily been written, recorded, and stored away in a time capsule around the year 2000. It sounds authentically death/doom from that era, an era I loved deeply.

Of course, just sounding like a record lost in time wouldn't be enough to make the list, especially this high. The Storm Within is also a deeply emotional album full of authentically fragile moments. Death/doom always faces the risk of sounding melodramatic, as if the emotions aren't quite real, that they've been dramatized for aesthetic effect. I never felt that in response to this album. As these musicians grow older they aren't forgetting the rawness of emotions of loss and the resulting confusion and discontent. In saying that I immediately feel a sense of concern for these gentlemen. I hope they simply tap into these emotions for musical inspiration and haven't been spending the last 30 years wallowing in despair. Of course I spend quite a bit of my adult life wallowing in despair, so I'm not in a position to weigh in on others' mental health. 

Best of 2023

 3) Ahab - The Coral Tombs

Ahab has been writing concept albums since they started and I've made a ritual of reading the book in the same year of their album so I can understand the lyrics, give everything context, create feedback loops between music and literature. 

This was by far the most painful of those experiences. Normally the pain would be as a result of the emotional weight of the experience, but this time was different, this time they picked a shit fucking book. I have no idea why 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is considered a classic. In it's 240 pages hardly anything happens. Nemo simply zooms from one end of the earth to the other speaking passively about the evils of man, but never giving us the source from which his hate is derived. He has such an unwavering command of his vessel he makes it clear no one is ever in any danger. Verne completely forgets danger is the fountain from which intrigue pours. His captive Aronnax watches as they zoom around and takes note of all the fish and vegetation at the bottom of the sea. That's 90% of the content of the book.

There are two compelling moments in the book. One Ahab dutifully covered, an underwater funeral complete with ritual and procession. I really enjoyed it when the images between mediums coalesced here. The other compelling moment was an experience near the south pole. The Nautilis is trapped beneath a gigantic iceberg and the crew slowly suffocates while trying to discover modes of escape. Ahab didn't include this as a track and I can't imagine why because they know how to write about suffocation (Aeons Elapse off the Giant is THE best song they've ever written).

Ultimately Ahab are fantastic songwriters, and they did successfully draw enough influence from this turd of a novel to create a compelling, charismatic, heartbreaking album. One can only imagine the quality of the resulting album if the next book is actually good.