Illegal Foreign Object

I love when an album takes you on a journey, and each of these albums propels the listener on a ride.

One of my favorite things to come out of my 2023 in music was learning about Dream Unending’s 2022 Song Of Salvation. On Starpath, they team up with Worm for a split album that is beautifully expansive.

Required listening: “So Many Chances”, “If Not Now When”, “Seas Of Sorrow”

Cattle Decapitation is so much more than a grindcore band. Sure, the brutality is there, but there’s a depth and emotional weight to the band’s music that makes them one of the most important bands in metal. Terrasite is arguably the best metal album of the year, and its concept of Earth fighting back against humans is as comforting as it is terrifying.

Required listening: “Terrasitic Adaptation”, “We Eat Our Young”, “Scourge Of The Offspring”, “…And The World Will Go On Without You”

Supercrush is dreamy Singaporean shoegaze that transported me back in time. Do yourself a favor and listen to “Crush” with a good pair of headphones — you’ll take flight.

Required listening: “All I Wanna Do”, “Crush”

RAT WARS conjures images of nighttime crawls through a neon-lit dystopia. The album’s Trent-Reznor-producing-Depeche-Mode vibe is an unsettling joy.

Required listening: “DEMIGODS”, “UNLOVED”, “HATEFUL”

If Ritchie Blackmore had decided to form a black metal band, it very likely would have sounded like Lamp Of Murmuur. The demonic shrieking and buzzsaw guitars are present throughout (“Conqueror Beyond The Frenzied Fog” and the title track), but what saves Saturnian Bloodstorm from repetitiveness are the moments when the band allows the odd keyboard to take the reins (“In Communion With The Wintermoon”), and when the break-neck gives way to groove (“Hymns Of Death, Rays Of Might”).

Required listening: “Conqueror Beyond The Frenzied Fog”, “Hymns Of Death, Rays Of Might”, “In Communion With The Wintermoon”

I bumped up against this album right before the calendar switched to 2024. Played in the dead of night through a pair of headphones, the moments of disquieting delicacy found throughout the album made me feel like I was being swallowed by a black hole.

Required listening: “Et smelter”, “Tankespinnerens Smerte”, “Requiem Aeturnum”

Enchanting, melodic death metal that slings enough anthemic guitar solos at the listener to make Joe Satriani crack a smile. Guitarists Yegor Savonin and Kristian Grimaldi shine with regularity.

Required listening: “Harbingers”, “Crumbling Pillars Of A Tranquil Mind”

I was most pleased when shoegaze gods Slowdive returned to the scene with the band’s first album since its 2017 eponymous reunion album. With everything is alive, the band crafted an album of dreamy walls of sound and ethereal vocals that cascade over each other.

Required listening: “alife”, “shanty”, “kisses”

Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix’s mind is endlessly interesting (seriously, subscribe to her Substack). With Liturgy’s 93696 (which means “heaven”, according to Hunt-Hendrix’s numerological interpretation), her band has created a beautiful, unsettling album that forces the listener into a state of spiritual self-discovery.

Required listening: “Djennaration”, “Haelegen II”, “Caela”, “93696”

Grindcore band Full Of Hell and shoegazers Nothing stare each other down (literally — the bands recorded their songs while looking at each other) over six tracks of stunning, soul-stirring music.

Required listening: “Rose Tinted World”, “Like Stars In The Firmament”, “Forever Well”, “Spend The Grace”

“Impossibly catchy” isn’t a term typically associated with this level of brutality, but Ontological Mysterium is a glorious mix of grindcore, thrash, black, and death metal that keeps my head banging and my horns raised skyward.

Required listening: “Neon Leviathan”, “Preterition Hymn”, “Cult Of Shaad’oah”

That’s all for today, folks! Come back by on Monday for the final installment (finally, right?!) of my 2023 in music! Last up: the WEIRDOS!