Apologies for the extreme lateness of this 2023 favorites list, but its been a hectic 2024 so far. You can check out the  Heavy Metal Buddies metal top twenty (which is different from mine here) at this video: but as far as my list goes, its a lot of old favorites and couple of new surprises. Lots of metal and lots of local, how these tend to wind up for me. I might come back and do an honorable mentions add-on but needed to get this one out before 2025...
 

1. Bad//Dreems - HOO HA! Another stellar addition to the Baddies catalog. Australia in fine form for indie/ punk rock, as usual.

2. Panopticon - The Rime of Memory Austin Lunn continues his mastery over the style of black metal he popularized and ups the emphasis on pure epicness with a sprawling expansive set.

3. Billy Batts & The Made Men - My Empire Is Crumbling Maybe the best punk band in the South? The youngins delivered their highly anticipated full length and it was all bangers.

4. Cable Ties - All Her Plans More Aussie punk goodness, some of my favorite tunes released last year.

5. Wednesday - Rat Saw God I don't even know if 'bootgaze' is a real thing but this band has got talent and memorable songs with lyrical and musical imagery that stick with the listener.

6. Stagbriar - Telepathy Probably just the best rock band in the state right now? Perfect indie rock produced with maximum gravitas.

7. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Land of Sleeper Brutal and heavy British sludge, maybe my favorite thing they've done.

8. Hellripper - Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags The greatest one-man Scottish blackened thrash metal band of all time. Yes, those are bagpipes rocking your lame ass.

9. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Weathervanes This is my favorite Isbell record in a very long while and I love them all. Songwriting and performance are completely beyond.

10. Bedlam Hour - Win A Billion Dollars! What a trip it was to get a new Bedlam Hour record in 2023 - modern and catchy, the scene legends are still defending pop punk.

11. Bethany Cosentino - Natural Disaster
12. Occult Fracture - From the Dead
13. Cirith Ungol - Dark Parade
14. The Dirty Nil - Free Rein to Passions
15. Graveyard - 6
16. Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
17. Big Brave - nature morte
18. Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium
19. Godflesh - Purge
20. Body Type - Expired Candy
21. Great Falls - Objects Without Pain
22. Greta Van Fleet - Starcatcher
23. Bully - Lucky For You
24. Wonderflu - Green Planet
25. Blood Ceremony - The Old Ways Remain
26. Boris and Uniform - Bright New Disease
27. Danava - Nothing But Nothing
28. Aubs - Bodybag Manifesto
29. Leander - On the Hall Hill...
30. Drug Mother - Rise Witch
31. Ghost - Phantomime
32. John List Society - Joe's BBQ
33.Witchskull - The Serpent Tide
34. Gonemage - Astral Corridors
35. Medicine Horse - Medicine Horse
36. Prong - State Of Emergency
37. Swans - The Beggar
38. Voivod - Morgöth Tales
39. Jordan Day - Laid Back and Wasted
40. Ufomammut - Crookhead
41. Various - River Monster Records Presents: Split Series Vol. 2 Gagger / Lot Lizards
42. Fucked Up - One Day
43. GELD - Currency // Castration
44. Homeskin - End's Daze Without Organs
45. Homeskin - Forgetfully Washed Into Callousness
46. Debby Friday - Good Luck
47. Jeff Rosenstock - HELLMODE
48. The Keening - Little Bird
49. King Saul and the Heretics - King Saul and the Heretics
50. Devil´s Hour - Black n´ Punk Marauders
51. Marnie Stern - The Comeback Kid
52. Drab Majesty - An Object in Motion
53. Graveripper - Seasons Dreaming Death
54. Krallice - Mass Cathexis 2 - The Kinetic
55. Memorrhage - Of Horrid Ache & Perfect Ascension
56. Oozing Wound - We Cater To Cowards
57. NOT - Stop The World
58. The Pretenders - Relentless
59. Lamp Of Murmuur - Saturnian Bloodstorm
60. Shame - Food for Worms
61. Enslaved - Heimdal
62. Divide and Dissolve - Systemic
63. Marissa Nadler - Visions
64. MIZMOR - Prosaic
65. Schizophrenia - Chants of the Abyss
66. The Prozacs - We Scream EP
67. Violet Cold - Multiverse
68. Camel Tofu - Tofu Scramble
69. Die Spitz - Teeth
70. KK's Priest - The Sinner Rides Again
71. Metallica - 72 Seasons
72. Liturgy - 93696
73. Oxbow - Love's Holiday
74. Auralayer - Thousand Petals
75. boygenius - the record
76. Blue Ricky - BR
77. Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman...
78. KEN mode - VOID
79. Lana Del Rey - Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd
80. Sun Kil Moon - Quiet Beach House Nights
81. Tennis Courts - You Won't Find It On Your Own
82. Till The Dirt - Outside The Spiral
83. Wayfarer - American Gothic
84. Code Orange - The Above
85. Dead Pioneers - Dead Pioneers
86. Crypta - Shades of Sorrow
87. Goodbye Sunshine - People Will Like You When You Stop Being Yourself
88. Spectral Lore - 11 Days
89. Pile - All Fiction
89. 100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs
90. 3D & The Holograms - s/t
91. Spotlights - Alchemy For the Dead
92. Terms - All Become Indistinct
93. Blackbraid - II
94. Coffin Torture - Blennoid
95. Pupil Slicer - Blossom
96. Foo Fighters - But Here We Are
97. Dave Lombardo - Rites Of Percussion
98. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Petrodragonic Apocalypse; Or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation
99. Memorrhage - Memorrhage
100. An Autumn For Crippled Children - CLOSURE

 

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