Best LPs of 2023 #5-1

5. Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Much has been made in the black-metal-verse about Blackbraid's meteoric rise to fame over the past 12-15 months. Some suggest he's an "industry plant". Others have gone so far as to question the very validity of his ancestry. I'm here to raise a big, fat fucking middle finger to those idiots. It's bullshit. All of it. I've had the distinct pleasure of seeing this enigmatic frontman earlier in the year and it is without a doubt the closest thing I've had to a religious experience. He's the real fucking deal, folks. Fire and passion burst from every seam of his sophomore effort Blackbraid II. At over an hour in length (nearly double the length of his debut LP), Sgah’gahsowáh (a Mohawk name for "witch hawk") is free to expand on the songwriting style(s) and ideas introduced on Blackbraid I. Like a wolf bearing it's teeth, he snarls his way thru an impressively varied nine tracks of indigenous flavoured black-metal. Songs like "The Wolf That Guides The Hunters Hand" place you in the thick of the trees in the Adirondack Mountains, blood rushing as you take part in the hunt with branches cracking underfoot. Others, such as "Twilight Hymn of Ancient Blood", tread violent Scandinavian soundscape(s) and echo the likes of Amon Amarth (especially at that 4:00 mark). An hour is a big ask for any black metal album and admittingly, Blackbraid II DOES lose a bit of steam in the back end. Its front half, however, is potently loaded with so much fury and fire, that earning a spot here was all but guaranteed after just a a single playthrough. Expect big things from this outfit in 2024/2025.

Standout Tracks: "The Spirit Returns", "The Wolf That Guides The Hunters Hand", "A Song of Death on Winds of Dawn"

4. Dodheimsgard - Black Medium Current

Where do I even begin with this one? No, seriously...a couple of dozen playthroughs later, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what I've experienced. An absolute cosmic mind-fuck from front to back, Black Medium Current treads a fine line between avant-garde weirdness and trve black metal kvlt-ness. It's perplexing at times, with songs changing course at the drop of a hat--but it's done in such a way that feels palpably organic--and strangely accessible. Certainly, I was never anything less than captivated by the kaleidoscope of sounds (second-wave black-metal, EDM, jazz, industrial, classical, post-rock) present on this 72-minute musical (space) odyssey. Engrossing, mesmerizing and so intelligently composed, Black Current Medium is unlike anything I've heard in 2023. To understand this album's brilliance, you need to experience it for yourself. Maybe more than once.

Standout Tracks: "Et Smelter", "Interstellar Nexus", "It Does Not Follow", "Halow"

3. Stortregn - Finitude

That's it. There's a new rule at The Wrecked Neck HQ moving forward. If Switzerland's Stortregn happens to drop a new record during a calendar year--it automatically gets a spot on my year-end list. No exceptions. I don't even need to listen to it. Alright, alright, scratch that. Of COURSE, I'll want to listen to it because there are few blackened tech/death bands I've had as much fun with in recent years than this Swiss quintet. Rooted in an extra crispy brand of swirling, technical death metal (2011's Uncreation, 2013's Evocation of Light), they've been slowly turning up the "smile dial" since 2018s Emptiness Fills the Void. With 2021's Impermanence, they turned it to ten and effortlessly landed the album a No. 2 spot on my year-end list. With their latest release, Finitude, they break the fucking thing off. Infectiously melodic and progressively daring, this is the most energized the band has ever sounded. Just listen to the way that flamenco break (yes, flamenco) in the middle of song-of-the-year candidate, "Xeno Chaos", takes off like a rocket again at the 4:18 mark. I'm still trying to wipe the smile off my face. Tracks flow seamlessly together across Finitude's 43 minutes with panache and flair, but Stortregn's extensive leanings of prog this time around ensures that the album changes shape more readily than a Stretch Armstrong figurine.

Standout Tracks: "A Lost Battle Rages On", Xeno Chaos ", "The Revelation "

2. Wayfarer - American Gothic

This is the album that Denver CO's Wayfarer have been threatening (at gunpoint) to make since 2018's World's Blood. They came close to perfection with 2020's A Romance With Violence, even landing a No. 12 slot in my annual year-end list (in retrospect, it should have made it in the top 5). Like a masked outlaw, it pistol-whipped and hog-tied me with it's dusty and violent merging of second wave black-metal and the sounds of Old West Americana. The only thing foiling a clean getaway? Some minor pacing issues and a slight need of self-editing. With the release of American Gothic in late October, it was evident that this quartet of killers had been polishing their Colts and sharpening their boot knives over the past few years. Though American Gothic clocks in at 6 minutes longer than its predecessor, there isn't an ounce of fat on it. Guitar riffs clash like a shooting gallery full of Winchesters, basslines roll like angry tumbleweeds and drums pound like the driving wheels of a steam locomotive. It's flawless in its execution and easily the best album of Wayfarer's career. It's also one of the most unique brands of black metal to emerge out of America in over a decade.

Standout Tracks: "The Thousand Tombs of Western Promise", "The Cattle Thief", "To Enter My House Justified"

1 . Fires in the Distance - Air Not Meant For Us

Just one minute into album opener "Harbingers" and I knew that this sophomore effort from Connecticut's Fires in the Distance was going to crack a spot on this list. It took just one full playthrough to know that Air Not Meant For Us would stand atop of it. No album in 2023 evoked as much genuine feeling as this one. From its glorious arrangement of ethereal keys to its gravity-defying guitar/bass melodies (how these atomically heavy riffs can soar to such astonishing heights is a mystery), to its shimmering cymbal crashes, Air Not Meant For Us lifted me off the ground with every listen. The aforementioned "Harbingers" and "Wisdom Of The Falling Leaves" still cause a swell in my chest and elicit a sensation of taking wing above the trees, skimming low-lying clouds with my fingertip. By the time I come crashing to the ground under the emotive and monolithic weight of album closer "Idiopathic Despair" 49 minutes later, I do so with a smile in my heart. In a year in which we were spoiled with an abundance of doom-metal riches, no band did so with as much grace, beauty and elegance than Fires in the Distance. Air Not Meant For Us is a melodic doom-metal masterpiece.

Standout Tracks: "Harbingers", "Wisdom of the Falling Leaves", "Idiopathic Despair"