MUSIC 2023: top 23 albums

Albums which I play in the car all the time. Albums which are way too long to listen to every day. Albums which I already listened to too much. Albums which I unjustifiably neglected. Albums with a profound message. Albums which are just pure fucking fun. Albums from bands I've been a fan of for ages. Albums I only just got in the last couple of weeks. And so on and so forth...

So many different albums with so many criteria coming into play. So many different moods and styles. What is more valuable? An album which calms me down? And album which makes me think? An album which puts me into a cathartic rage?

I feel that it's getting harder to come to a satisfying result when putting together my favorite studio releases of the year every time I'm doing this. My usual practice of only considering studio albums which I own as physical copies narrows the list down a little (obviously not always in a way that's fair), but the task still remains impossible. At some not too far point in the future I will inevatibly look back on some choices I made or missed and shake my head in disbelief.
How couldn't I with all those varied great releases that just didn't fit in anymore? When I had settled on 22 (or really 24, because I bent the rules twice) I still had a competition of names like Årabrot, Crawl, Edena Gardens, Fleshvessel, Jegong, John Zorn, Les Nadie, Onkos, Sulphur Aeon and more battling for that last spot. And that's good! As long as it's a pain the ass to put together a ranking like this it means that I've been exposed to an abundance of great music.

In this spirit: Here are - cast in stone for all eternity, or at least until tomorrow morning - my personal...

TOP 23 albums of 2023:

1. BELL WITCH - Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
   
   
   
   Even though the one eighty-three-minutes song album (their second in that specific format after "Mirror Reaper"!) cannot even be conclusively judged yet, because it is only the first part of a trilogy, I already predicted back in July that I would probably crown this glacially moving Funeral Doom behemoth as album of the year. And how could I not? Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman have even improved their songwriting and arrangement skills and expanded their sound palette to appeareantly score the sorrowful fading of existence as a whole. Stillstand beyond the laws of time has never felt as crushing as floating here, in the void behind the Clandestine Gate.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. LAIBACH - Sketches of the Red Districts
   
   
   
   Yes, the Slovenian collective has made it into top positions of four different MUSIC 2023 lists now! One answer to how they can pull this off lies in several writing teams. "Sketches of the Red Districts", an Industrial / Ambient / Electronic historical recontextualization of Laibach's birth myth in 1980 in connection with a bloody conflict between Yugoslav fascists and the local labour movement of Trbovlje in 1924, saw the current drummer and guitar player step forward to create an atmospheric masterpiece, which is one of the most classic sounding Laibach releases post the 1980's, but still presents a fresh new take on their aesthetics.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. POIL UEDA - PoiL Ueda / Yoshitsune
   
   
   
   Bending the list rules, part one: This spot inevitably had to be shared by two equally brilliant albums, on which traditional Japanese vocalist and satsuma-biwa player Junko Ueda tells epic stories from the Far Eastern Middle Ages with the aid of the absolutely bonkers Magma- and King Crimson-inspired French Avantgarde Prog Rock group PoiL. Both albums of their joint cross-cultural project PoiL Ueda burst with boundless creativity in stunningly intense virtuosic performances. Undoubtly one - err, two - of the wildest and most exciting musical adventures of the year!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. BIG|BRAVE - Nature Morte
   
   
   
   Once again the Canadian Noise Rock trio crushes our hearts, souls and bodies with the deeply satisfying Drone of monolithic guitars and the honest rawest emotion in Ronin Wattie's piercing heartfelt vocal  performance. In a discography that has never shown any sign of weakness "Nature Morte" sees Big|Brave broadening their compositional toolset by drawing lessons from the previous collaboration with The Body without sacrifing their principles of maximalist minimalism.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. HEALTHYLIVING - Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
   
   
   
   While it's impossible to pin this band down on one specific reference like (old) Gggolddd, Brutus, Dool or Chelsea Wolfe, because every track shows a different side of their Post Rock/Punk/Hardcore/Doom/Noise/etc. mix and showcases another facet of Amaya López Carromero's amazing voice, which you might also know from her solo project Maud the Moth, one thing is for sure: Their amazing debut album is filled to the bursting point with strong songs which won't leave your head anytime soon.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. THE KEENING - Little Bird
   
   
   
   After the rest of Salt Lake City's sadly disbanded Doom Metal giants SubRosa have already released an album as The Otolith in 2022, it was now time for front woman and main songwriter Rebecca Vernon to also step into the light again. And be it as singer and lyricist or as a composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist - she has so much to say on this genre-transcending full-length of wonderful Alternative Gothic Doom Folk greatness! The epic closer "The Truth" alone in truth is one of the greatest songs of the year. Gorgeous!   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. ESBEN AND THE WITCH - Hold Sacred
   
   
   
   "I am down here, in my chapel, where I'm safe from the evils of the world." Esben And The Witch's goodbye before an undetermined long break due to living far apart from each other now, is a magically intimate beauty I cannot stop listening to. Never has the trio's music been so stripped-down Ambient, so centered around Rachel Davies' mesmerizing voice and words. "Hold Sacred" goes right to the soul. This album is a soothing, consouling embrace in the darkness.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. DYMNA LOTVA - Зямля Пад Чорнымі Крыламі: Кроў (The Land Under The Black Wings: Blood)
   
   
   
   A Belarusian Post Black Metal band fleeing from the regime - right into Ukraine before Putin's  invasion - releases an anti-war album based on both the horrors of WWII in their home country and their personal experiences. Even after that serious premise you're hardly prepared for the gut-wrenching storytelling and adamant earnest stance of "Land Under The Black Wings: Blood". Musically Dymna Lotva's Black Metal incorporates Doom as much as influences from Folk, Classical music and even Jazz in a similar way artists like Dordeduh or White Ward are doing it. Very haunting and unfortunately so significant!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. GILDED FORM - Gilded Form
   
   
   
   Hardly even moving synths, the halting heartbeat of minimal drums and a guitar slowing down the Blues to tectonic lentitude pay homage to Dylan Carlson's Earth with a coat of bohrenish Doomjazz. Besides Bell Witch no album here will let you hover in a world-withdrawing state of timelessness like Dead Neanderthals (Otto Kokke, Rene Aquarius) and Nick Millevoi are achieving it on their joint project, debut release and forty-minute track "Gilded Form". Even though this is as conceptually reduced as ever it ranks among the most  powerful things the prolific Dutch duo has done so far.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. THE END - Why Do You Mourn
    
    
    
    Is it the chaotic baritone guitar and drums rhythm section of Anders Hana and Børge Fjordheim? Is it the double saxophone force of Mats Gustafsson and Kjetil Møster? Or is it the mind-boggling vocal craziness of Sofia Jernberg? Each of these elements alone would already make the dynamic experimental Heavy Jazz Fusion on "Why Do You Mourn" special. Together however The End are capable of anything - even super-slowing down the Sudan Archives Trip Hop track "Black Vivaldi Sonata" to thrice of its original length. 
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
11. SWANS - The Beggar
    
    
    
    How to summarize two hours of Swans in just one paragraph? Yes, Michael isn't done yet at all, so here's another ginormous, existential offering, which combines the recent sound and wordiness of "Leaving Meaning" with the reverb aesthetics of "The Great Annihilator". This huge meditation on decline, decay, dissolution and Death even contains an album within the album with the forty+ minutes of the studio collage "The Beggar Lover (Three)". With all those larger than life works of the past it's unlikely that many Swans fans will crown "The Beggar" as their all-time-favorite. Yet of course the usual scale of operation alone still lets "The Beggar" tower far above most other music releases out there easily.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. AUTOPSY - Ashes. Organs, Blood and Crypts
    
    
    
    Fuck yeah! No deep analytical thoughts necessary for this one - it's a bloody gory new Autopsy album. Starting with the title it's a completely accurate what you see is what you get situation - that goes literally for the sick album cover and just as much for its rotten content. Last year's first album with new bassist Greg Wilkinson "Morbidity Triumphant" was already old school rancid Death Metal bliss at its best like only Chris Reifert and Co. can deliver it. But somehow the legends got even darker and filthier now. Gut-splashing, grave-desecrating Autopsy - they just always know how to throw the greatest parties.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
13. GODFLESH - Purge
    
    
    
    JK Broadrick and BC Green added only one letter to the title of their 1991 classic, and indeed the new Godflesh album is an open throwback to the sound and mindset of "Pure". While the guitar sound is fuller and sludgier now, the sawing riffs and screeching leads complimenting Broadrick's nihilist vocals are as similar as the rumbling bass sound and the Hip Hop inspired programmed and sampled drums. Due to its referential nature "Purge" isn't Godflesh's most experimental or original album by far, but with this execution - damn, it's a monstrously grooving cold and heavy Industrial Metal beast.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
14. SARMAT - Determined to Strike
    
    
    
    Recorded before, but released after their "Dubious Disk", which already made it into my TOP 7 non-album releases 2023, the album debut of Sarmat starts more on the Technical Dissonant Death side, before spreading wider into all kinds of Exreme Metal / Avantgarde Jazz Fusion insanity. "Determined to Strike" brings together brutality and classy brass with natural ease. This short but highly entertaining brainmelter for sure is a peak exemplary I, Voidhanger Records release and definitely one of the finest works in the current wave of Jazz Metal!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
15. KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD - PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation /
    The Silver Cord (Extended Mix)
    
    
    
    
    Of course! With Joey Walker instead of Stu Mackenzie wearing the main composer's helmet this time, the hyper-prolific Australians released an unlikey pair of twin albums based on related song ideas - and who am I to seperate them? "PetroDragonic Apocalypse" is King Gizzard's longer, more refined and more relentless second Thrash Metal album after "Infest The Rats' Nest", which also calls back to the Psychedelic Prog greatness of "Polygondwanaland".
    
    
    
    
    "The Silver Cord" on the other hand is their first completely (vintage) electronic work, which bounces between Klaus Schultze Synth Kraut, 90's Euro Dance, Beastie Boys raps and many more influences. Both albums can easily look eye to eye with the top tiers in the band's always growing discography - at least if you don't count the regular twenty-six minutes version of "The Silver Cord" and go for the vastly superior hypnotic one-and-a-half hour Extended Mix instead!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
16. REVEREND KRISTIN MICHAEL HAYTER - Saved!
    
    
    
    This album was the hardest to place in this ranking. It's just so hard to decide whether this incredibly fervent exploration of worship songs by the artist formerly known as Lingua Ignota is creepy, barely listenable - or an addictive, completely transfixing experience. How can these old and new blatantly religious hymns be so eerily alienating yet comforting, so ambivalently non-judgemental and still so powerful? Presented more detached from personal experiences than her previous work, with an analogue low-fi production simulating the decayed quality of unearthed, worn out historic recordings "Saved!" lays open the ecstatic core of congregational songs and deliberately leaves it up to us what to make of it. I guess I'm still in that process.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
17. COLD DEW - Yuyu 欲欲
    
    
    
    Released in early February the debut record of Cold Dew starts out so sugary and schmaltzy that I almost dismissed it immediately. And now look where we are eleven months later! "Yuyu 欲欲" still remains my favorite Krautrock album of the year - if the term is even sufficient enough for the boundlessly creative journey through East, West, mind and cosmos these Taiwanese Psychedelic Rockers allow us to share with them, as they confidently step into the space between the void which the departure of Kikagaku Moyo has left and Acid Mothers Temple, without trying to copy either of them.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
18. P/O MASSACRE + ALEX BUESS & MERZBOW - Aural Corrosion
    
    
    

    Best Harsh Electronics is a subcategory I probably wouldn't even have been able to fill every year since I've been doing these annual rankings. The double album of exile Russians Anton Ponomarev and Anton Obrazeena - featuring collaborative longtracks with Swiss experimental musician Alex Buess and Japanese Noise legend Merzbow - however must be included here. Made of Electronic Noise, guitar, saxophone and trumpet P/O Massacre is fighting fire with fire, as this unsparing "Anti-War" music sounds just like propaganda, invasion, occupation... war! Someone should melt the wannabe-czar's face with this!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
19. DIVIDE & DISSOLVE - Systemic
    
    
    
    Black Native American and Maori girls unite against the state of the world! A ridiculously over-amplified duo playing instrumental Sludge / Doom / Noise Rock with interludes of looped Jazz saxophones and keys against the white supremacist system. It's a good sign that a band with this specific niché premise can even exist in today's Metal environment. The actual execution of Divide and Dissolve's raw and real fourth album however is even better. Crushing!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
20. NI - Fol Naïs
    
    
    
    Is Benoit Lecomte the MVP of this TOP 23? The bass player did not only play the acoustic four strings on both PoiL Ueda albums, but is also plugged-in member of the absolutely loony Avantgarde Math Noise Metal band Ni. Their delightfully heavy new coo-coo complex instrumental album sounds pretty much like its hilarious cover looks and totally fits its Old French title, which translates to "Born Mad".
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
21. THE NECKS - Travel
    
    
    
    The great mysterious question lingering on my mind when listening to The Necks is whether the Australian trio even needs to prepare or concentrate on a certain mood before they press record, or if this kind of almost spiritually hypnotic Post Jazz just comes out naturally in up to over twenty minutes long jams when you put these seasoned players into one room. Piano/organ, upright bass and drums - plus some overdubs and post production - forming transcendent signals and imprinting it into your bloodstream. (Look how I snuck all song titles into that sentence!)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    


22. CAZAYOUX - Cazayoux
    
    
    
    My number one exclusively uplifting feel-good studio release of the year hails from Texas. The self-titled debut album of drummer Forest Cazayoux'  big band is grooving with a many-layered, rich and smoothly produced amalgam of infectiously funky instrumental Psychedelic Latin Afro-Beat Jazz Rock Fusion. This sweet and spicy record bursts with amazing individual performances from innumerable instruments, yet noone steals the spotlight too much from the ensemble as a whole, which is the sparlking star of the show.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
23. HENRIK LINDSTRAND - Klangland
    
    

    

    Need a score to turn any everyday situation into emotionally complex, melancholically longing arthouse cinema? Swedish composer Henrik Lindstrand's sat down at his piano and composed a roundel of achingly beautiful melodic pieces, which accompanied by a sixteen-piece string ensemble will give you exactly that. Contempory Classical music which captures the fugitiveness of the moment in genuine purity.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    favorite MUSIC 2023 - all my lists:

    TOP 23 albums   |   TOP 7 live albums   |   TOP 5 reissues
    TOP 7 non-album releases   |   TOP 23 live shows

MUSIC 2023: TOP 23 live shows

Even if I discount the very few duds or some which I didn't attend long enough to judge them properly, I have seen at least 120 shows this year. That's quite a respectable count for me. Attending more festivals than in previous years certainly helped achieving it.

Being so satisfied with the live music year also makes it easier to stomach what you've missed. But in that regard I don't have many regrets anyway: The chances to see Voivod were wrapped inside too expensive packages - and their last headlining show in Hamburg had only been in November 2022 anyway. The cancellation of Lingua Ignota's tour - and with it the whole Sunday of A Colosal Weekend - made me extend my stay at the festival to Friday instead and see many other great bands.
The show not vistited which actually nags at me the most right now is the fiery package of Årabrot (with the drummer of Mono), Jaye Jayle and Karin Park. But then I also accept my excuse that they just didn't come close enough, especially for a weekday. Sleeping on getting tickets for The Hirsch Effekt when they were playing closer than any other concert just minutes from my place of work has no valid excuse however.

Needless to say that picking my 23 favorites (seperated into  the two categories of solo and festival performances) among that mass wasn't easy - and some shows got painfully and surprisingly left behind. Not even with sneaking in three honourable mentions after each list this feels complete. Seconding that thought even the two last concerts I attended just this week after already having finished 99 percent of the post - Jo Quail and Ni - both feel like they only missed these ranks by a hairbreadth.

But at least you can be sure that every name counted here really blew me away!

TOP 11 CLUB/SOLO SHOWS 2023:

1. LAIBACH - "Alamut" - Centennial Hall Frankfurt
   
   
   
   The inspiration: A Slovenian allegory on Italian fascism set in 11th Century Persia. The line-up: an entire symphonic orchestra, a Slovenian Art/Folk vocal group, an Iranian Avantgarde vocal ensemble, a dozen disharmonic accordion players and of course familiar Laibach members including iconic headwear model Milan Fras as grim narrator. The result: A perfect storm of meaningful cultural exchange in an amazing combination of harsh Industrial, Folk and Modern Classical Music. "Alamut" was a highly artistic, deeply moving larger than life experience, a dream in surround sound and a nightmare of the human condition strangling your soul. Profound and meaningful. And how were Laibach even able to pull of such a giant endeavour beside all their other activities? Everything other than crowning this spectale as show of the year would be blasphemous.
   
   
   
   
2. SWANS - Kampnagel, Hamburg
   
   
   
   Only a couple of days prior to Laibach doubling down on deserving the top spot on this list it had been occupied by Michael Gira's Swans. Their return to Hamburg after seven long years was a triumph. While not as legendary unbearably loud as the previous shows I've seen of them, their performance still was a ginormous hypnotic rite of catharsis. But with more focus on acoustic, lap steel and bass guitars - and no regular electric guitars at all - their sound achieved new levels of clarity and musicality while still maintaining their mind- and body-shaking intensity. Is this the most nuanced and dynamic incarnation of Swans we've ever heard?
   
   
   
   
3. LAIBACH - "Love Is Still Alive" - Church of St. Nicholas, Rostock
   
   
   
   Laibach traveling through space while playing a Country song in eight gustavholstian movements. Laibach demonstrating "Ordnung und Disziplin" in a bleak and sinister Industrial set. Laibach revisiting "Zarathustra" and "Laibach Revisited" and drawing "Sketches of the Red Districts". Laibach predicting "The Future" and showing Sympathy for the Coming Race. What a rollercoaster! Even for the Slovenians' standards this show was weird and unusual - but so captivating and just utterly brilliant. The location being a church didn't hurt the overall experience either.
   
   
   
   
4. CLIPPING. - Hafenklang, Hamburg
   
   
   
   Believe it or not, but this really was my first Hip Hop club show outside of a festival. And what a choice it was! With droning electronic sounds, irresistible grooves and breakbeats, Horror Soundtrack, Avantgarde Noise and Powerviolence two thirds of Clipping. provided an excellent (more than just) backdrop for the unbelievable flow of world-class MC Daveed Diggs, who delivered his tales of fear and murder in breathtaking high-speed raps, a performance I strongly assume was on par with legends like Kendrick Lamar. The sold-out Hafenklang rightfully was ablaze.
   
   
   
5. BJÖRK - Barclays Arena, Hamburg
   
   
   
   It's not completely accurate to call Björk the antithesis of a Pop star. She did play a lot of her greatest hits at her orchestral show last year in Berlin. And even her 58th birthday party in Hamburg, which was sonically built upon percussions, synths and a flute sextet, was embedded into a huge impressive multi-media spectacle and featured outlandish costumes smaller artists are very unlikely to pull off. The whole performance however, which mostly consisted of "Utopia" and "Fossora" material, was too much of an artistically driven theatrical experience to find room for conventional crowdpleasing in it. But if you were willing to immerse, it also was absolutely magical beyond words.
   
   
   
6. SUN RA ARKESTRA - Kampnagel, Hamburg
   
   
   
   It was the second time I saw the legendary Spiritual Free Jazz big band without their leader Marshall Allan, who - now almost a hundred years young - doesn't board planes over the Atlantic anymore. But at least this show took place in a proper location for their energetic sound, which just felt somehow out of place in the Elbe Philharmonic Hall the previous year. Letting this Jazz supercluster unfold just an arm's length away, saxes all around you, is still an incomparable experience.
   
   
   
   
7. TORI AMOS - Laeiszhalle, Hamburg
   
   
   
   Postponed right to the night before I was headed towards Roadburn - what a relief that the dates didn't crash! - my first Tori Amos show since 1997 treated me to a trio band performance, which included a surprisingly excessive lot of long improvisational jams. And while the vocal and piano prodigy certainly cared more about audience expectations regarding her hits than Björk did this year, this show still included some relatively obscure cuts. Even with a couple of songs dragging on a little too long and five festival days trying to overshadow my memory of the show afterwards, it was just wonderful. 
   
   
   
8. DALILA KAYROS - MS Stubnitz, Hamburg
   
   
   
   Great expectations being exceeded by far. That happens when you put an artist into the right venue. And Dalila Kayros' booming Electronics and multi-octaves vocal experimentalism came ready-made for big ship's hold sound of the MS Stubnitz. The air of exlusivity (it was by far the least attended show in this lot) may also have been an elevating factor making the Italian Avantgarde artist's visit in Hamburg a special event. Absolutely loved every minute of her performance!
   
   
   
9. STEVE VON TILL - Indra Musikclub, Hamburg
   
   
   
   In a parallel universe, with the right music the unique and charismatic sonor voice of the Neurosis frontman could have made Steve von Till a super star. But luckily he chose the wrong music, so his audience gets to relish in his spellbinding singer/songwriter ballads and epic Ambient Folk pieces. His multi-instrumental electro-acoustic quartet brougt a surprising amount of variety to these intimate eighty minutes of intense atmosphere.
   
   
   
10. ESBEN AND THE WITCH - Hafenklang, Hamburg
    
    
    
    I had already seen the trio perform their brilliant subdued album "Hold Sacred" a month prior at Roadburn, but this club show, which mixed the drumless new material with older Post Punk hits and Post Rock epics worked even better. Rachel Davies led us through an emotional, solacing journey, which once again confirmed Esben And The Witch as one of the greatest live bands to see these days. Nothing but love for this wonderful music!  
    
    
    
11. IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT + AUTHOR AND PUNISHER, Hafenklang, Hamburg
    
    
    
    Time for some metropolian redemption! Due to massive sound issues their Roadburn show had been a disappointment, but the Hafenklang once again saw Imperial Triumphant's light-speed avant-jazzed Dissonant Black/Death Metal insanity in its full undiminished glory. The sound was even especially great this time.
    Seeing co-headliner Author & Punisher as a duo for the first time - six years ago it was just Tristan Shone and his fascist-killing machines - was more than just the icing on the cake, but pure Industrial Gaze bliss!

TOP 3 honourable mentions:

Archive (Markthalle Hamburg)
Divide & Dissolve (MS Stubnitz)
Erland Cooper + Henrik Lindstrand - Elbe Philharmonic Hall, Hamburg

TOP 12 FESTIVAL SHOWS 2023:

1. OTAY:ONII - "Míng Míng" - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
   
   
   
   Unreal or too real? One thing is for sure: The whole duration of Otay:onii's intimate solo show felt like stepping out of this world and immersing deeply into an alien but profoundly moving alternate cosmos. As high as my expectations of the Chinese-American artist had been - the full performance of her masterpiece "冥冥 Míng Míng" exceeded them by far. In my review I said it was like watching Lingua Ignota on Mars. And that's still the most fitting synopsis I have to offer for this breathtaking experience.
   (The collaborative show of her band Elizabeth Colour Wheel with Ethan Lee McCarthy the next day was also awesome.)
   
   
   
   
2. AUTOPSY - Stonehenge Festival, Steenwijk
   
   
   

   After decades of being a fan of the quintessential gory Death Metal legends without ever having seen them live, Autopsy were obviously my personal reason to drive all the way to the Netherlands to finally check that box. But it definitely wasn't just me, but a consensus among everyone who witnessed it, that they proved to be the undispured headliners of the festival. From Chris Reifert's incredibly sick voice and drumming to the beautifully disgusting twin guitars and even the stage banter or a totally perplexing random incident involving an overenthusiastic festival crew member, this was an obliterating triumph and easily one of the best Death Metal shows I have ever seen.

   
   
   
3. BORIS - A Colossal Weekend, Copenhagen
   
   
   
   As soon as the Japanese part-time quartet (in Heavy Rocks mode with regular drummer Atsua stepping forward as singer and master of ceremonies) started, the air inside the Vega changed. There was a rare unexplainable magic, a palpable electricity filling the room, which turned this absurdly heavy spectacle into a surprisingly transcendent experience. The phenomenal, unbelievably emotional rendition of "(not) Last Song" being one of the best song performances in the history of song performances only was the icing on this truly special cake of a Rock'n'Roll show.
   
   
   
4. AD NAUSEAM - "Imperative Imperceptible Impulse" - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
   
   
   

   Another Death Metal show, another reason to use superlatives. "Imperative Imperceptible Impulse" still stands as my favorite album of 2021, and what a treat it was to experience this uniquely dissonant, brutal and sophisticated Avantgarde masterpiece live and in the flesh! Especially the growling and throat singing performance of frontman Andrea Petucco opened my ears to aspects of the album's brilliance I hadn't even fully realized before. And how incredible was the sound? Mind blown and replaced by pure bliss.

   
   
   
   
   
   
5. BIG|BRAVE - "Nature Morte" - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
   
   
   
   Only one year after opening the festival in the Koepelhal Big|Brave brought their droning Noise Rock back to Roadburn, this time onto the biggest stage and as a quartet including the bass player of My Disco. The Canadians played their latest album "Nature Morte", Robin Wattie's piercing charismatic voice peeled her soul. So what was there not to love? I don't think I can ever get tired of watching this band - and they're only getting better and better, bigger and braver.
   
   
   
   
   
6. BELL WITCH - "Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate" - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
   
   
   
   A show consisting of only one eighty-three minutes long Funeral Doom epic, which transcended not only its genre and the concept of Metal as a whole, but also the laws of time and space? Sounds familiar. The surprise premiere of the new Bell Witch album "Future's Shadow Part 1" established this format as the band's very specific new standard modus operandi and reprised their legendary 2018 "Mirror Reaper" performance. And me having witnessed that unforgettable show before is probably the only reason that this year's revelation isn't higher up this list. I just already knew beforehand how otherworldy this genius offering would be.
   
   
   
7. POIL UEDA - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
   
   
   
   Yes, this is already the third show from the very same Friday in April on this list. What an unbelievable day! And it couldn't have ended better than in the Paradox Jazz club with the merged group PoiL Ueda.
   PoiL are a borderline bonkers Prog Rock band with Zeuhl influences from France, including the heaviest acoustic (not upright) bassist ever, who also plays electric in Ni.
   Junko Ueda is a traditional Japanese singer and satsuma-biwa player. Together they started a wild, virtuous, polyrhythmic fire, a cross-cultural fusion of genres unlike anything I've ever seen or heard before. Namihazureta!
   
   
   
8. KANAAN - Esbjerg Fuzztival
   
   
   

   Thanks to a broken tour van Kanaan arrived at the venue twenty minutes after they were supposed to begin, hectically set up the stage without any soundcheck within minutes - and then really went for it! The Norwegian trio's explosive cocktail of Stoner Rock, Kraut and Jazz Fusion already is an insane spectacle under normal circumstances. But with the extra stress-induced adrenaline rush, pushed forward by drummer Andre in complete carnage mode, this particular performance was a special kind of madness.
   
   
   
9. JULIE CHRISTMAS - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
   
   
   
   What a double life this lady is leading! Teaching kids by day and every once in a while being a totally badass Rock star, ragging her costumes, cutting her hair and screaming her heart out on the Main Stage of the best festival in the world by night. Julie Christmas' heavy as fuck career-spanning show included old and brand-new solo material as well as songs from her former bands Battle Of Mice and Made Out Of Babies. After three years of postponement this show finally happening was a cathartic relief and a larger than life celebration of communion.
   
   
   
10. DUMA - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
    
    
    
    Could there have been a more abrasive, more dystopian, more sensory-overloading way to end a festival than the surprise show of the Kenyan-Ugandan duo Duma? Started with the intention of playing Metal, this band has become a schizophrenic chaotic bastard of Electronic Noisecore, Industrial and Black Metal - and that information probably still won't help you to adequately imagine the extremely immerse trip to hell they throw you into. Was this a feverish party or a cold stroboscobic nightmare? I'll never exactly grasp or remember. I only know this melted my mind. Insanity!
    
    
    
11. MOE - A Colossal Weekend, Copenhagen
    
    
    
    What a presence! No matter if she was whispering, speaking, singing or screaming, the intensity of vocalist and bassist Guro S. Moe alone would have been enough to make this the show of the day. Think Julie Christmas with sprinkles of Michael Gira and Jarboe! But imbed it into an extremely heavy, crushing and creepy Avantgarde Sludge sound and crown it with Tomas Järmyr on the drumkit - and you'll witness a performance unlike anything you've ever seen before!
    
    
    
12. BZAAT - Woodbunge Festival, Holzbunge
    
    
    
    These two maniacs from Israel played their first couple of shows outside of their home country this year and if you were among the lucky few to catch them, I know that you had a shitload of fun. Such a wild, genre-bending Rock'n'Roll whatthefuckery! From Funk to Orientalisms, from Easy Listening to Math Rock this stew was spiced with a mind-boggling richness of ingredients. What a blast!
    
    

TOP 3 honourable mentions:

Causa Sui (Esbjerg Fuzztival)
Healthyliving (Roadburn)
Yantras (LOC Brewery, Tilburg / Roadburn Offroad)

favorite MUSIC 2023 - all my lists:

TOP 23 albums   |   TOP 7 live albums   |   TOP 5 reissues
TOP 7 non-album releases   |   TOP 23 live shows