Illegal Foreign Object

Before I get started with this “Best Albums of 2023” list, accept that I’m a lunatic. Doing so should ensure we get through all of this in one piece (together, hand-in-hand).

I’m not going to list my “Top 10”, “Top 50”, or even my “Top 100” albums of the year — I prefer the randomness of gifting you my top 171 albums of 2023 (if I counted correctly). I also will not be typing out a ranked list of the albums, because who can rank better or worse, anyway? One day back in October, Cattle Decapitation’s Terrasite was my favorite album of the year. A week or so later, I was in a mellow mood and was convinced that Matthew Halsall’s An Ever Changing View was my favorite. Instead, I’m going to break all these albums up a little differently. So, just kinda hop aboard, okay?

Yesterday, I wrote about how I fell back in love with the metal genre in 2023. Today, I’m starting this expansive list of my favorite albums of the year by running down the metal albums from some of the veteran titans of the scene that got my head banging and my horns raised.

This New Jersey thrash metal outfit has been around for almost 45 years, consistently releasing albums (20 studio albums and counting) while unabashedly waving the thrash metal flag. Plenty of this band’s contemporaries toned down the assault in pursuit of the almighty dollar — Overkill just continued to pummel audiences into submission with break-neck riffage and founder Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth’s gutter rat vocals. Scorched is a ferocious call to arms — a middle finger in the eye of the status quo.

Required listening: “The Surgeon”, “Wicked Place”

Full disclosure: I thoroughly disliked this band when I was a kid. Song titles like “Shredded Humans” and “Meat Hook Sodomy” didn’t have the desired effect on me — I just thought it all seemed stupid. With Chaos Horrific, however, I have finally come around to what (I think) Cannibal Corpse is throwing down. The members take their music very seriously, but they don’t take themselves all that seriously, right? I mean, right?! Surely anyone with the balls to call themselves Corpsegrinder (especially when their real name is George) has a sense of humor. Anyway, that’s what I’m going with, and Chaos Horrific, though mired by iffy production, makes for a tasty bludgeoning.

Required listening: “Summoned For Sacrifice”, “Blood Blind”

A full review is found here. Enjoy.

Required listening: “72 Seasons”, “You Must Burn!”, “Room Of Mirrors”

These grandpas of glorious industrial metal gruel have as much in common with Killing Joke as fellow Birmingham metal royalty Black Sabbath, but their sound is very much their own. If Tony Iommi started a shoegaze band and then asked Mike Patton to add his two cents to the mix, you’d get GODFLESH. With PURGE, GODFLESH stirs the tiniest smattering of hip-hop and techno into the buzzsaw soup for a delicious 44-minute ass-kicking.

Required listening: “Land Lord”, “The Father”

A full review is found here. Dig it.

Required listening: “Barely Alive”, “The Wrong Time”, “Without A Conscience”

Admittedly, I am one of those Sepultura fans that got all pissed off when Max Cavalera left the band in 1996, then mostly ignored all subsequent releases from the band. Long after the fact, I went and corrected this misguided attempt at loyalty (2003’s Roorback and 2020’s Quadra are fantastic listens), but as good as longtime vocalist Derrick Green is, there was always something special about Cavalera’s vocal style. Morbid Visions and Bestial Devastations are re-recordings of Sepultura’s earliest material. The improved production offers an ear-pleasing assault. Plus, it’s just cool to hear Max sing these songs again.

Required listening: “Troops Of Doom”, “War”, “Bestial Devastation”

That’s all for now, kids. Check back tomorrow for a list of sad bastards!