2023 was a year in which I said I would do a lot of stuff and then only did the same amount of stuff I did in 2022. In my defense, a lot of this time was spent working on things I eventually decided to not try to carry to term, and the second half of the year was consumed in large part by me writing about 10k words of fanfiction that I have not posted as of me writing this, but will have as of when you are reading this. So I sort of did more things. This year, though. This year is the year we go BIG. Hopefully. There’s more fic in the works, obviously, but there’s also some cool videos I’m working on. And maybe a comic??? Maybe other things too??? Don’t touch that dial!
This article is not about 2024, though. It is about 2023. There was a lot of music that came out in 2023, and I listened to most of it. (Do not fact-check this.) I’m not reviewing 20 albums like I did last year because, frankly, that was kind of a pain in the ass. We’re scaling back to 10 this time, which will probably be better for all involved. Better for me, because it means I’ll have more time to work on other things, and better for you because you’ll know what albums are the hot ticket items you should REALLY check out, instead of being confused by the large quantity of prices and values the selection possesses. Let’s dig in, shall we?
Soul and psychedelia are two genres of music that are near and dear to my heart, and even though neither of them have really been a going concern for the music business as a whole this decade (barring Silk Sonic and maybe that Lil Yachty album), they’ve still been cropping up on my best-of lists fairly frequently since I started doing them for 2021. Both of them at once, though… that’s a more elusive find. Psych soul is generally not something one associates with any time period that isn’t the late 60s and early 70s, when both of its composite genres were peaking and shit was generally much cooler than it is now, but here on her third album, Taja Cheek has delivered an album in the style that does more than just stand equal to those classics of yore. Rather, I Killed Your Dog is an updating of psych soul’s sonic palate into something that requires far more than just the two words of a genre name to adequately describe it. With a title as audacious as that, and with a slate of 16 tracks in just 36 minutes, there’s very little room for weakness in the music here, but Cheek lives up to the challenge throughout: once it gets going, the record never really stops exploring new ground. Despite this, the album still remains markedly unified for such an eclectic record, looking at its central sound from a different angle on every track, starting from the slow-burn surrealist mission statement of the title track (“I killed your dog/I am your dog”) and continuing on through everything from the ambient buildup of “r (EMOTE)” to the hypnotic guitar lines on “Uncertainty Principle” and the spacy folk on display in “Clumsy.” These songs are all given ample space to breathe and flex their muscles, which means that a lot of the shorter tracks are really short, one clocking in at just five seconds in length. While brief song-snippets like these often feel like an unnecessary detour, these interludes feel just as essential to the album’s feel as the main songs, injecting oodles of playfulness into the listening experience (especially on “Oh Wow, a Bird!” and “What’s That Song?”) The whole experience feels very much like the aquatic experience suggested by its cover, seamlessly flowing from one bold idea to the next, through intense rapids and languid ponds in equal measure. If there is anything for me to gripe about here, it’s that the first few songs before the title track don’t quite grab me the same way that the rest does, but they’re by no means bad, and this is still a remarkable work on the whole. If you’re looking for forward-thinking neo-psych or neo-soul, or both, or if you just want to explore new horizons in fairly accessible experimentation, look no further.
“2023 was a good year for industrial-tinged Irish folk music” is technically a true statement, but it’s also quite misleading, because really, it was just a good year for Radie Peat. The multi-instrumentalist made waves earlier in the year as part of the group Lankum, with their album False Lankum serving up a healthy portion of Irish folk with a slight hint of droney darkness, but her other band, ØXN, takes that darkness to the forefront with their album CYRM, my preferred listen of the two. Traditional songs make up the majority of the tracks here, as on False Lankum, but here, the acoustics one would expect of a folk album have been replaced in large part with droning electronics, extending the length of the typically brief folk song to upwards of nine minutes with them. The dirge-like atmosphere is perfectly complemented by the choice of standards, with their tales of lost love, caused either by death or murder, sounding truly apocalyptic in this atmosphere. As is often the case with this style of music, the album’s highlights are also the two longest songs of the bunch: the slow burn of the opener “Cruel Mother” is a harrowing listen that eventually builds up to a beautifully apocalyptic motorik-backed outro, and the closer, a 13-minute long cover of Scott Walker’s “Farmer in the City” more than lives up to the original’s reputation as the opening shot of the most daring period of any 20th century pop star’s career, creating an absolutely glacial death rattle of a track that manages to surpass Walker’s original version, at least in my mind. That’s not to say that the shorter tracks are lacking in slack, though: the middle section of the album holds far more than its own, whether via louder tracks like “Love Henry,” or softer ones such as “The Feast.”
I would be remiss to talk about this album without mentioning the non-Peat members of ØXN, because Peat is far from the only card the band has up its sleeve. The vocal harmonies of all four members are essential to the album’s ability to cultivate such an intense, almost ritualistic atmosphere, and the one original composition featured here, the aforementioned “The Feast,” was written by Katie Kim, the group’s keyboardist. CYRM is undoubtedly a group effort, and that communal spirit, combined with the band’s knack for finding interesting new sounds to score interesting old tunes, is what makes this album so special.
Unless you’re an Animal Collective diehard, you probably haven’t been paying that much attention to what the band has been up to for the last decade or so. Putting out just two studio albums in the twelve years following the release of their breakout album Merriweather Post Pavilion, it would be easy to assume that the band had been resting on its laurels following their brief date with success to close out the 2000s. And while those two albums certainly have their fans (myself included), the release of Time Skiffs in 2022 began a new wave of interest in the band from the indie-music listening public, with many heralding the album as a return to form, or at least a step towards a return to form. (It probably didn’t hurt that Skiffs is consciously the closest they’ve gotten to their 2000s sound since Merriweather.) Part of the excitement towards Skiffs, I believe, was caused by news coming through the grapevine that the album was just the first part of a two-album series, and the second part, based on live performances of the songs due to feature on it, was set to be one of their best ever, if fans of the band were to be trusted. One song in particular, “Defeat,” had by this point taken on a mythic status amongst fans, both due to its extreme length and its intense emotions. A year after Skiffs, this fabled second project was indeed released as Isn’t It Now?... and people treated it pretty much the same as any other post-Merriweather AnCo album.
So what gives?
Well, for one thing, I think part of the reason why this didn’t really restore AnCo’s reputation is because it basically sounds the same as Time Skiffs does. Granted, I think it’s an improvement on that sound, but it’s also a lot less immediate: there’s no “Prester John” or “Strung with Everything” here that works as an instantly-memorable centerpoint on the album, apart from maybe the opener “Soul Capturer.” The songs here are much more atmospherics-based, and most of them are either very short or very long, which can often be kind of a turn-off when combined with a lack of hooks. Additionally, the album ends on “King’s Walk,” a weird vocal experiment that is definitely what I’d consider the weak link of this album; never a good thing to have as your last track.
But if you are into atmospherics in your pop, then this album is great! Tracks like “Genie’s Open” and “Magicians from Baltimore” are excellent upgrades to Time Skiffs’ aquatic sound, which often failed to impress me on its longer tracks, and shorter tunes such as “Broke Zodiac” and particularly “Gem & I” (there’s a vague magic theme to the track titles here if you hadn’t noticed) are much appreciated jaunty interludes that keep your ears refreshed and ready for more long-form work. “Defeat” is, of course, the centerpiece of this album, an absolutely beautiful track, even if it is much slower-paced than what people may have been expecting from the prog-epic-esque track length, and definitely ranks highly amongst my favorite AnCo songs, although I wouldn’t say it’s my absolute favorite. The post-”Defeat” material is admittedly a bit weaker, and “Stride Rite,” Deakin’s contribution to this album, is not quite as good as Time Skiffs’ “Royal & Desire,” but it still has its fair share of gorgeous moments, much as the album does as a whole. It may not be the reinvention of the wheel for AnCo that people were expecting it to be, but its improvement of the Time Skiffs sound into what is most certainly their prettiest record yet secures its place as my second-favorite of all the band’s albums, and definitely something worth checking out with an open mind. But then again, my favorite of their albums is Hollinndagain, so what the hell do I know?
If you know me at all, you probably know that I like Sufjan Stevens a lot. There isn’t really an album of his that I think is any worse than “OK,” despite the man’s penchant for putting out a ludicrous amount of superfluous side projects in between each of his “main” works. And those main works all rank extremely highly amongst my favorites of all time, in particular The Age of Adz, which is my favorite album of all time, period. Adz, Carrie & Lowell, and The Ascension form a series of three perfect records in my mind, which is pretty impressive consistency, especially when you consider that Sufjan was involved in two other flawless albums during this time period, Carrie & Lowell Live and A Beginner’s Mind. So, with Javelin, Sufjan has returned to receiving the same kind of acclaim he has for albums like Illinois and Carrie & Lowell after a few years of stuff like Ascension and Beginner’s Mind that people that aren’t me didn’t seem to like as much, and naturally, contrarian that I am, I think it breaks that streak of perfection. Why? Well, mainly because I don’t think it really treads any new ground for Sufjan. The Ascension was a very interesting, if divisive, delve into synthpop, and A Beginner’s Mind, while still a folk album, featured the presence of a second great songwriter and voice, as well as being his first mellow album to not feature the crushing sadness of Carrie & Lowell. Although Javelin is sort of doing something new by featuring a combination of Sufjan’s acoustic and electronic instrumentations for the first time, it lacks both the bombast of Adz (or “My Rajneesh,” which is probably closer to what he’s doing here) and the playfulness of The Ascension.
Of course, I will still defend anything this man puts out until the day I die, so this being a “subpar” release in my eyes just means that it’s only one of my favorite albums of the year, instead of just being the favorite. His songwriting here is still unparalleled, and the folktronica-y sound is still very pleasing on the ears, and definitely has some moments where it really shines. Highlights include the initial explosion of grief on opener “Goodbye Evergreen,” “A Running Start,” which is maybe his first-ever straightforward love song, as well as one of the prettiest songs he’s ever put out, the somber, ethereal “So You Are Tired,” and the absolutely devastating admission of defeat that is “Shit Talk,” which continues to prove Sufjan’s unique space in music by both being one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard and being named “Shit Talk.” It may not have the singular sound of some of its predecessors, but Javelin can rest easy knowing that it’s still one of the most well-written, emotional, and touching folk albums I’ve ever heard. Not a bad consolation prize.
There’s a lot wrong with the world right now, so much so that pretty much everyone I know or have heard about that wants to fix things is so overwhelmed by the mess we’ve found ourselves in that they simply throw their hands in the air and go on with their lives, and it’s hard to blame them, because taking care of yourself is hard enough when so many people are living paycheck to paycheck. The conflicting emotions of love for the world and hatred for the people who are fucking it over can be difficult to reconcile into a path forward, but on My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, ANOHNI manages to bridge that gap easily, often within the confines of one song. Opener “It Must Change” serves as a somber elaboration on a fairly obvious statement, but after that, things start to get really interesting. The smooth soul of “It Must Change” is immediately contrasted by the fiery “Go Ahead,” ANOHNI playing chicken with transphobes accompanied only by a sea of skronk, reminding us that hate is a force of isolation, both for those who are targeted by it and those who spew it. The rest of the album features both of these positive and negative emotions in fairly equal measure, and it’s a testament to Hegarty’s talent that they’re able to co-exist so well. “Sliver of Ice”’s affirmation of the joys of post-transition life is followed by the very upbeat-sounding “Can’t,” a song about being unable to accept the death of a close friend. The whiplash is intense, but it’s an accurate depiction of the trans experience, equal parts joyous and miserable. The album is about more than just being trans, though: “It’s My Fault” and “There Wasn’t Enough” expresses despair over climate change, and album highlight “Rest” (I’m a sucker for clean guitar triplet arpeggios) is a universalist plea for a reprieve from all the world’s suffering. Both specific and broad, My Back has all the makings of a socially-conscious soul classic, something it’s clearly aiming for; ANOHNI mentioned What’s Going On as a particular inspiration for the record in a press release. But what does one do with this suffering, this wanting for more? “You Be Free” closes the album with a pretty good answer; after singing the album’s title, Hegarty demands “you be free for me.” Swaths of queer people, and people in general, have died as part of the struggle to bring the world to the more tolerant, if still very imperfect, position it’s in today. Carry their torch, and continue striving for a better world, but remember to take stock of what is joyous, both in the world and in yourself, and celebrate it along the way.
I have to admit, I was scared of Wallsocket at first. As a native Midwesterner, hearing about someone from *scoffs* California writing an album about life in a small Midwestern town didn’t excite me very much; I was almost sure they would get their portrayal of the region wrong. That being said, lead single and opening track “Cops and robbers” did manage to entice me with its exciting story of a bank teller going Joker mode for meth money and its juxtaposition of a crisp bassline with tasty distorted synths. (Plus the little “Yowww!” April does right before the last chorus.) And so I kept looking into the singles for the album as it approached release. “You don’t even know who I am” didn’t wow me, but the other two singles, “Locals” and “Old money bitch,” were electropop bangers of the highest caliber, so by the time September came around, I had gone from dreading Wallsocket’s release to actively anticipating it. I was also aware that this had some sort of ARG attached to it during its rollout that shed more light on the concept of the record, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to it. I figured that the album would be pretty good, but I wasn’t sure if I would be invested enough in it to really start digging into the story beneath the songs.
Boy, was I wrong!
Not only is this far and away the best pop album of the decade so far, it’s also far and away the best concept album of the century, and maybe just the best concept album, period. Admittedly, part of this is because this album is in large part about a trans woman who lives in the Midwest, and I am also a trans woman who lives in the Midwest. Regardless! April underscores’ songwriting chops here are immaculate, as is her production, regardless of whether she’s writing hyperactive electropop like most of the aforementioned singles and “Johnny johnny johnny,” an extraordinarily danceable song about a trans girl being groomed by a chaser, or when she writes slower, more acoustic-ish ballads, like “Seventyseven dog years,” (most of)“Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” and even “You don’t even know who I am,” which I ended up liking a lot better in an album context. The only real weak link I can think of is “Horror movie soundtrack,” which is both 2 minutes longer than it needs to be and serves mostly as an extension of “Shoot to kill, kill your darlings” thematically, but everything else here is so strong that I can’t really care all that much. Sometimes, these electronic and acoustic styles even collide directly, creating bizarre-yet-engaging results such as the inexplicably banjo-driven 2000s electropop song “Old money bitch,” which goes harder than maybe any song here in terms of sheer catchiness, and “Geez louise,” the undisputed highlight of the album, a seven-minute opus of industrial rock, hoedown-style country, ambient guitar twang, and an explosive shoegaze-esque finale, all in support of lyrics that cover trans identity, religion, colonialism, the best refutation of the idea that trans youth don’t understand their own emotions I’ve ever heard, and the word “womanoid.”
On the subject of lyrics, I’ve alluded to it already, but the storytelling on Wallsocket is pristine. The basic concept of the album - three women coming of age in a suburban Midwestern town - is nothing new, but the way April approaches the topic is a wonderful breath of fresh air. You have the standard teen movie plots here, like the titular Old Money Bitch (yes, that’s her name) being ostracized for her wealthy background and estranged families on “Seventyseven dog years,” but it’s sandwiched alongside unique concepts such as “Cops and robbers”’ aforementioned meth-fueled bank fraud, the multifaceted queer and post-colonial experience of “Johnny johnny johnny” and “Geez louise,” and a running thread about stalker Mara’s parasocial relationship with protagonist S*nny that begins with the word-salad on “Locals” and culminates in “Uncanny long arms,” where having actually met S*nny on the previous track, Mara suddenly becomes horrifically mutated, dies and goes to heaven by way of Jane Remover feature, and is then cast back to earth to get her shit together. It’s a delirious payoff, especially at the climax of the album, and it’s also the perfect segue into closer “Good luck final girl,” an honest-to-God Americana song in which the three girls take stock of everything that’s befallen them as they leave Wallsocket and each other behind on separate trains. None of them are really happy, but they all come to some sense of conclusion as the song dissolves into nothing but a warbling vocoder. It might be a little unrealistic (we all know that trains in America don’t go to the suburbs nearly often enough for this to happen in real life), but it’s the perfect ending for the cinematic scope of the story told on the album. And as I leave Wallsocket behind as the track draws to a close, I’m left with a lot of interesting thoughts, a lot of very strong emotions, and a sense that I’ve just listened to a truly powerful and special album. From here on out, the sky’s the limit for April.
the whaler is part of a tradition of folky albums featuring yarly vocals and singing saw. The granddaddy of singing saw folk in the modern era is, of course, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, but in my mind the whaler is closer to taking after a different album in the singing saw canon, Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum’s 2009 opus Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head. Divorce Lawyers, both through its intricately arranged song structures and its despondent mythology built around Mason and their partner at the time’s trans experiences, creates an extremely unique sound that complements its unique story perfectly. Home Is Where, a band with multiple trans members that hails from the decidedly not trans-friendly state of Florida, are clearly indebted to Divorce Lawyers, but they are not content to merely imitate Mason’s masterwork. Of course, this is in large part due to the band not even really existing in the same genre as Mason, being more of an emo band that has taken the harmonica, the banjo, and the ever-important singing saw into their arsenal alongside the traditional guitars. But I know much more about folk than I do emo, so that’s the angle I’m working with here. Apologies to any emo fans that might be reading this.
Declaring the whaler a shining example of the previously-nonexistent genre of “trans folk punk emo” and calling it a day would be easy enough, but frontwoman Bea MacDonald has far too much on her mind here to constrain herself to singing about one thing for the entire record. It should be noted that Home Is Where is not from one of Florida’s big cities; they call Palm Coast home, a city of about 90 thousand people that didn’t even exist in 1970. This sort of quasi-rural, post-suburban upbringing shows itself in the lyrics just as much as any sort of queer reading does, and the band’s folky stylings do much to accentuate the stories told here of rural America. “daytona 500” is the epitome of this strand of the album’s sound, a bona-fide country rock song on an emo album that uses the eponymous race, and Dale Earnhardt, who famously died racing it, as a way to comment on the lives of those who live in the raceway’s vicinity. MacDonald isn’t critical of the rural Southerner, but she does express a reluctance to continue living amongst them, signing off the track by singing “the end of the world is taking forever.” That anxiety, and that feeling that your home isn’t your home even if it might serve someone else just fine, is what makes the whaler so special in my eyes. It’s always nice to see trans narratives, of course, but much of the time, the narratives that make it into the greater queer consciousness are those of the city dweller, those who live in an environment where they can much more easily find community. I don’t live in the most rural place, but I would wager it’s still more rural than most Americans, and while I do feel the pain of isolation pretty regularly, there’s still a lot that I love about living out here. MacDonald’s ambivalence towards her home makes me feel much more seen than those urban tales, as much as I still enjoy them, and it’s what makes the whaler such an important document in my eyes. Plus, the singing saw is pretty cool too.
At its core, Dogsbody is an elaboration on a concept that most of us are well aware of, even if we’re not consciously thinking about it: sex is fucking terrifying. Gay sex especially. Vocalist Cole Haden sings about all manner of depravity like it has taken the form of a beast from the deepest reaches of Hell and is now tearing him apart limb from limb. He couldn’t be happier about this, if lead single “Mosquito” is anything to go by: the frantic lacerations the band provides give him an ample framework for a truly intense vocal performance, interspersing images of darkened hallways and the mixture of semen and blood with the repeated mantras “I want this life” and, of course, “with a body count higher than a mosquito.” The juxtaposition of malaria and intercourse is what Hayden works with all album, and he’s able to find more than a little of the former in his exploits in the latter, spending a lot of the time where he’s not directly singing anything gasping for air, drowning in pure hedonistic excess. Even as more and more things lose their taboo status in society, frank discussions of sexuality remain well beyond the pale of what is considered acceptable in public spaces, and Haden works with this tabooness to transform gay sex into the all-consuming monster that defines this record. Sex is both a horrific force to be avoided at all costs and an inescapable temptation, one that Haden gives in to repeatedly throughout the album. The sense that part of your “job” as a gay person is to transgress those taboos also makes it difficult to know how much excess is too much, which Haden artfully articulates on mid-album tracks “Slate” and “Divers,” proclaiming that he can find a sense of self-worth, but “not within himself.” Sex both liberates and imprisons Haden, trapped between two extremes about what the “right” course of action to take regarding sexuality is.
Even without this stellar lyrical focus, Dogsbody distinguishes itself from its contemporaries just in terms of sheer ferocity, bludgeoning the listener with a rhythmic, industrial brand of noise rock that makes the more traditional strain of the genre seem tame by comparison. The perversely danceable rhythms, dominated by throbbing basslines and mechanicals blasts of guitar feedback, greatly accentuate the sexuality on display here, but it’s not the only thing the band can do. The album’s slower tracks, such as the aforementioned “Divers,” as well as “Sleepless” and “Sun In,” provide a marked and necessary contrast to the rest of Dogsbody’s intensity, serving as more introspective moments while not shying away from the general creepiness of the record as a whole. The multilayered sounds across the album are what push Dogsbody away from pure sex, which would have been fine enough, and towards something much bigger: a refreshingly frank portrait of the ways in which gay sexuality, societal taboos and self-worth intersect, and what happens to relationships when they’re placed under the strain of such inescapable forces.
It’s pretty easy to make a case that nobody in music has been having a better decade than billy woods. Maps is the sixth of seven major albums he’s been involved in since 2020, and three of those other albums - 2020’s collab with Moor Mother Brass, 2022’s solo effort Aethiopes, and a different album from 2023, Armand Hammer’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips - have all been amongst the best rap albums of the respective years in which they were released, an impressive feat considering the brisk pace with which woods releases new material. Maps, though, goes beyond merely being a standout album in its genre, and beyond even Brass, which I would have put on my top 10 of 2020 if I did one that year, to be not just my favorite album of 2023, but also my favorite rap album, period.
This is woods’ second collaboration with producer Kenny Segal, following 2019’s Hiding Places, and it takes the form of a travelog, as its cover’s spoof of airline safety brochures might suggest. woods’ musings while on the road cover a wide variety of emotional territory, from wit and braggadocio all the way to the strange sense of melancholy that travel often brings with it. If I’m being honest, writing about lyricism is not really my strong suit, so I don’t really think I can convey the sheer talent woods has on display here through almost all of the album’s 44 minutes. Even as someone who doesn’t usually pay close attention to lyrics, I can tell that what he’s doing here is incredibly special, and I strongly encourage you to check it out, even if I can’t describe it with proper justice.
Segal’s production is a perfect compliment to woods’ talents, providing stellar beats like the creaking “Year Zero” and wistful “NYC Tapwater,” in addition to his contribution to the absolute monster of a track that is “Babylon by Bus,” which starts out with an Aphex Twin sample before swerving into a series of incredible, intense features from ShrapKnel and a standout verse from woods that opens with one of the most perfectly ridiculous put-downs in any rap song, much less in any verse-opening line: “Caught ‘em lacking on 9/11 / I lie down like V.I. Lenin.” By far my favorite track on the album, “Babylon by Bus” encapsulates everything I love about this album so much, from woods’ insane lyrical talents to Segal’s inventive but not-showoffy production to its excellent use of features. ShrapKnel aren’t the only guests to make a big impact here, either: Quelle Chris on “Soundcheck,” Danny Brown on “Year Zero” (who apparently performed his verse blackout drunk without any prior preparation, and it still sounds incredible), Aesop Rock on “Waiting Around,” and singer Sam Herring on “FaceTime” are all album highlights as well.
This might be a strange way to end off a music review, but I think I’d like to revise my claim earlier that I’m not very good at writing about lyricism. I think that what I said about that line in “Babylon by Bus” was pretty good, but the problem with this album is that there’s a moment of lyrical brilliance like that at least once in every track, and usually two or three times. If I was to come up with ways to colorfully illustrate woods’ talent for each of these bars, we’d be here all night, and it would probably take the oomph away from hearing them for yourself for the first time. So instead, I implore you to check this album out, whether you’re a fan of hip hop, poetry, or just music in general. It’s my favorite album of the year, my favorite album in its genre, and a pretty good contender for the best album of the decade up to this point. You won’t regret it.
This took way too long to put out. Oops. School is busy like that. I already said what I wanna do this year so I don’t think I have much more to say. I’m not sure I’ll do one of these next year because I want to shift into bigger things that are works on their own rather than just criticism. Thanks for reading this one though!