DIY-sphere AOTY 2023
the punk/hardcore/emo AOTY rundown
This was a weird year for me in relation to the punk/emo/hardcore scene from which so much of my audience comes. On the one hand, I've never felt more like I'm standing far apart from this world of music--one that, in so many ways, feels like it made me. I've felt increasingly alienated from the social aspect of the scene ever since about 2021 when I largely unplugged from Xitter, in a move that I still maintain was probably best for my mental health since I no longer deliberately stir up shit for dopamine anymore. (It had started to just give me panic attacks and shame spirals instead.) After listening to a few records in this lane on my backlog, I was concerned that I just straight-up couldn't connect with it like I used to. Had I become the cliche? The hardcore kid who grew out of the genre, and now mostly listens to metal, electronic, and Americana? (Well, yes, a little bit.)
On the other, I was looking through a quick list of current-year releases in this sphere to make sure that my backlog wasn't missing anything and realized to myself, oh, hey, I've actually listened to most of the heavy hitters that people are talking about this year. I mentioned in my last Patreon piece that I likely wasn't going to be done with my AOTY cleanup until February or March, but that's mostly because I'm still working my way through my mountain of metal, rap, and miscellaneous electronic/ambient/classical/country/jazz records. (Keep an eye out for those writeups at some point in the future.) When it comes to my (if you'll excuse the pun) core diet, I feel comfortable saying that I kept abreast of the major happenings, and even managed to follow a decent amount of what was bubbling up from the tinier Bandcamp world as well.
To be quite honest, I think the biggest shift in my perspective has been that it's actually okay that I no longer have the time and energy to be going downtown or to house shows to keep up with the goings-on and the drama. My show presence has been decreasing dramatically over the last few years, but it's really reached a tipping point where it's just so fucking hard for me to go out at night that I need to prioritize my health and keep in mind that, you know, if a band isn't good on record, seeing them live isn't gonna change that. That being said, the one big show I was looking forward to this year--Jeff Rosenstock's Austin show with Gel--ended up unfortunately losing Gel as an opener, and I still had a pretty good time.
I also realized that it isn't necessarily worth my time to create an impossibly-comprehensive survey of this music sphere like I have in past years, most glaringly 2020, when my year-end write-up felt like it almost killed me. So while this piece will be much more comprehensive than last year's, please don't expect anything remotely close to that level of intensity.
Special thanks to my typical sources for new music in this world: the journalism of Ian Cohen, Tom Breihan, David Anthony, Nina Corcoran, Hugo Reyes, Andrew Sacher, Chris DeVille, and Mia Hughes; Ashley Ogden's instagram; my wonderful friend Jim Howes; and my Discord skramily, without whom I likely would have slept on much of this.
Lastly, I would like to say that if Infant Island had released Obsidian Wreath this year rather than forcing us all to wait until January, it likely would have won AOTY.
With that being said, let's dive in. I don't really liked numbered rankings these days, so while I am going to loosely divide this list into tiers, they're mostly arbitrary with lots of bleedover and the albums in each tier are in no particular order except for my actual top tier of favorites. Let's dive in.
Honorable mentions:
Skourge- Torrential Torment. Fun thrash-indebted hardcore!
Pain of Truth- Not Through Blood. Hardcore that is, functionally, the platonic ideal of knuckle-headed fight riffs.
Equipment- Alt. Account. Smart emo-pop with sharply-observed lyrics and tight technical skills.
Parannoul- After the Magic. Gorgeous digitized shoegaze.
Heart Attack Man- Freak of Nature. School shooter pop-punk, but in a good way.
Incendiary- Change the Way You Think About Pain. It's Incendiary. It's good.
Kruelty- Untopia. Right on the line between hardcore and death metal, but not in a trendy way. Teenage Halloween- Til You Return. Indie-leaning punk rock with excellent vocal hooks from two equally strong, equally distinct vocalists.
Koyo- Would You Miss It? Strong Island melodic hardcore stays winning.
Fireworks- Higher Lonely Power. Crewneck pop-punk legends return, but now sound like Brand New crossed with Sufjan Stevens.
Year of the Knife- No Love Lost. The riffs go pretty hard, and the vocals are just killer.
All Out War- Celestial Rot. Poughkeepsie metallic hardcore pioneers return to their throne.
THESE RECORDS ARE GREAT.
Buggin- Concrete Cowboys. I wasn't expecting this to land as hard for me as it did, but I am pretty sure this was the most purely fun hardcore record I listened to in 2023. It's bouncy, it's catchy, and most importantly, it feels like the band members were just having a great time writing these riffs and shout-alongs. At this point in its nearly 50-year existence, when the formula has been expanded upon, remixed, and blown out in so many different directions, it's sometimes hard to appreciate the lean art of meat-and-potatoes hardcore, but sometimes you're reminded that, yes, when it's done right, this shit feels as vital in 2023 as it did in 2003 as it did in 1989.
Flying Raccoon Suit- Moonflower. This record feels like a natural evolution for Flying Raccoon Suit, a stylistically omnivorous--voracious, at that-- ska/hardcore/??? album that reaches for the clouds and ends up blissfully breaking through the waves upside down. (Hopefully that makes sense.) This record is exquisitely paced, with borderline-metalcore bangers followed up immediately by swooning, swaying ska beauty. But the thing I appreciate the most is these guys' craftsmanship. These songs hang together so well, man, and yet for such a large ensemble, it feels like everyone's voice comes through clearly.
Another Heaven- IV: Heaven Sent. Ali Jaafar from the Zero Brightness podcast has a few projects that I really liked this year, but this one is probably the most accessible, a shoegaze-tinged muscular alt rock record with a subtle sense for dissonance and melody. "Arab Stardust" feels like the lost child of Hum and Failure and it's likely one of the best songs of the year, but the whole record maintains that same level of guitar-drunk atmospherics and tight songwriting.
DIIE- The Right Hand of the Devil. This is Jafaar's other project on this list, and considering that Zero Brightness is a podcast about horror video games, this record fits that tone a bit more than the effervescent melancholy of Another Heaven. Some songs are named after horror movies, the album cover itself evokes the Satanic-Panic-exploitation era of 80s horror paperbacks, and the whole atmosphere is vaguely threatening. The overall direction of the music is mostly the same--shoegaze-indebted heavy alt rock--but this record just sounds indefinably evil and slightly unhinged in a way Another Heaven doesn't. (I wonder if Heaven Sent and Right Hand of the Devil were chosen as deliberately contrasting album names.)
Drain- Living Proof. West Coast crossover thrash > East Coast crossover thrash for me. I don't know how to explain it, I've always felt this way, likely because one of the first hardcore records I ever heard was the self-titled Suicidal Tendencies album. Drain feels like the way I remember that record sounding. The vocals here have such immense power and the guitar sound is perfect. I wish more thrash bands these days had a guitar sound like this. Just those two together would be enough to peel paint but the songs themselves are the best the band has done yet. Plus the Descendents cover is great.
Dreamwell- In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You. This was one of my most pleasant surprises of 2023, a seething combination of many different strains of post-hardcore that sounds as natural as it does desperate. Lyrically, this is a concept record, and I recommend that you sit and read the lyrics along with the album as it goes along because it's one of the few concept records to actually explore the emotional impact of its subject in ways as (seriously!) literary as they are purely physical.
Snag/Coma Regalia- MMXXIII. Snag are one of my absolute favorite modern screamo bands. They sound like Circle Takes the Square in a head-on collision with Torche (and I'm not sure if they're an influence, but I'll also say there's a little Gojira in there for good measure). Coma Regalia are in the status of screamo legends at this point. This split exhibits both bands at the absolute peak of their powers. Sidewinder riffs, violently explosive vocals, and amazing bass tones (in my opinion the most underrated aspect of the Middle Man Records house sound) collide for a brilliant exploration of emotional turmoil.
MOVE BHC- Black Radical Love. God, it feels great to hear a record like this—one that’s undeniably a hardcore record but so freely throws in influence from various strains of punk and metal and also even the primordial post-hardcore of bands like Saccharine Trust and Scratch Acid. This is radical-ass hardcore punk that is imbued with the spirit of free jazz (without necessarily sounding like free jazz at all!) and it is angry and it is beautiful. It’s also one of the rare records that feels extremely important, and somehow both takes itself extremely seriously (in the sense of the care that was taken in writing these songs and the fiercely intelligent lyrics) and not seriously at all (in the sense that this is still music and it is immense fun to listen to)
Taking Meds- Dial M for Meds. I listened to this album on a road trip and I think that's the perfect atmosphere to sit and let this one soak in. Skylar Sarkis's lyrics are at their best here, with wit so razor-sharp it leaves everyone blood-soaked and raw, while the music itself is well-oiled power pop with just a hint of emo noodliness and hardcore grit underneath it all. But like I said, the lyrics are the real star of the show. Speaking of, Sarkis also wins for best pull-quote of the year: "If you don't think [lyrics] are important, there are probably 100 shoegaze bands started every day in America so you should check one of those out."
Destiny Bond- Be My Vengeance. Denver's Convulse Records released one of the most come-from-behind hardcore surprises of the year for me with this record, an intelligent corkscrew of lo-fi thrashy basement punk and Revolution Summer melodicism that, surprises me with its shifts in direction and intent every time I listen. Most importantly, this record feels the way any hardcore record should--like the singer is holding the mic out at you through the speakers, waiting for your participation.
Sentinel- Age of Decay. Convulse stays on top with this record as well, which to be pithy, sounds like I'm dipping my Boston Strangler fries in a Celtic Frosty. This record has it all: the latent cred of a hardcore supergroup informing the whole endeavor; secretly excellent musicianship hiding beneath a veneer of atavistic aggression; and perhaps most importantly, a lyrical and vocal obsession with war, violence, and resistance that feels uncomfortably yet appropriately timely.
Jesus Piece- ...So Unknown. Not sure what else there is to say about this album, since I feel like it really made waves this year and Jesus Piece is one of the pre-eminent breakout hardcore acts of this era. This album specifically feels like a perfectly-measured step forward, with crusty Swedish guitar tones, clanging processed industrial-isms, and almost unbearably oppressive vocal intensity, but with a special factor of freewheeling naturalism that helps the whole affair hang together.
Harms Way- Common Suffering. I've been following Harms Way's career earnestly since like 2010, and I can say that this is definitively their best work since Isolation. What makes this album work is that, although their songwriting has evolved by leaps and bounds since that record, this album leans heavily back into the themes of bleakness, regret, and hopelessness that always gave this band just a bit of an edge over other bands who also trade in diamond-encrusted fight riffs.
Code Orange- The Above. Speaking of bands I've been following since 2010 or so, Code Orange is one of those bands I feel like I'm not really supposed to like anymore (and it's definitely laughable to be including them in a list centered around the DIY-sphere), but what can i say? I thought this was probably the best version of their post-Code Orange Kids sound yet. They've fully synthesized and reprocessed their mallcore influences into something that, if not greater than the sum of its parts, at least makes its parts sing (and stomp). Plus the Billy Corgan feature is the best the dude has sounded since like 1998.
Pupil Slicer- Blossom. The album title is appropriate here since I felt like Pupil Slicer, a band I've always felt is underrated and bursting with potential, really came into their own full-force here. This record feels like Deafheaven shotgunning 10 shots of espresso after an all-nighter spent playing fan-translated JRPGs on a haunted-ass, hardmodded PS1. This shreds, it slices, and it's one of the most visceral and immediate records of the year with some of the most creative guitar work I've heard in the hardcore space in quite a while.
INTERMISSION: SINGLES CORNER
(The space between a single, an EP, a demo, and an LP in this space is honestly up to interpretation, but IMO these releases skewed more in the "not an LP" direction.)
Joe Gittleman/BAD OPERATION- Wavebreaker #4. It's likely this would have climbed even higher in my personal estimation had it been a full-length record, but as it stands, this is roughly 16 or so minutes of exceedingly well-written ska that has pop hooks bleeding out of its pores, a snarling undercurrent of anger, and yet also this sort of gentle sensibility that acknowledges shit fucking sucks and ska is the perfect pressure release because it has this incredibly unique ability to sound melancholy, angry, and catchy all at once.
Colossal Man- Demo 2023. I love this little piece of deeply stupid lifer-core very much. Everything about this record knows exactly what it is, what it wants to be, and what it very much isn't, and I would go so far as to say that if anyone wanted to listen to a perfect example of how hardcore can be both completely backwards-looking and yet totally brilliant, this would be the best possible pick. Bonus points for being fronted by Grey Gordon of Demolisten, quite possibly the funniest dude in hardcore.
Oscar Bait- It's Not Your Fault. Oscar Bait is probably going to go down as one of the most criminally underrated hardcore bands of their generation, and that's a damn shame because I'd honestly much rather they be so popular they were overrated. There's so many bits and pieces of a tantalizing stew in their sound--everything from Count Me Out to Blacklisted to even a touch of Vision of Disorder--but one thing that Oscar Bait always remains is deeply and achingly human, and they've got some of the most poignant non-Fiddlehead lyrics in hardcore from this entire year.
Scowl- Psychic Dance Routine. If you'll allow me to plagiarize my thoughts from the last time I wrote about this band, I liked this EP so much better than pretty much all of Scowl's previous material. I think their decision to increasingly atomize the different sides of their sound pays dividends, with their more antic and intense, mid-2000s-Bay-Area hardcore sound benefiting from the contrast with their straightforwardly groovy and insidiously catchy alt rock.
Alienator- World of Hate. I cannot begin to explain to you how happy I am that songs are back and they're overtaking vibes. We were living in a "vibe over song" sort of era and I was really sick of it. This is hard-as-nails hardcore that feels like it was beamed straight out of 1983 except it's way heavier because the people writing and recording this have the benefit of an extra 40 years of hardcore to look back on and draw from. There's something beautiful about that sort of deliberate primitivism, and it pays dividends because when you focus this tightly on writing a specific style of song, you often are able to write it really fucking well. All 4 songs on this sub-10-minute EP are stellar and unbelievably catchy. I love the bass work on this thing too.
xWeaponx/World of Pleasure- Weapon of Pleasure. I read a Reddit comment about this release that said something like "Listening to this caused me to violently liberate caged animals from their prison" and yeah I feel that. xWeaponx reminds me a lot of that late 2000s/early 2010s Floridian metallic hardcore vibe, but with a tinge more melody. World of Pleasure are a bit punkier than that, but still very heavy and with an absolutely dynamite vocalist who lends this whole thing a sense of broken-glass emotion and power.
LURK- Natural Causes. Several years ago this band put out an EP that I referred to as "Devo-core"; this year they put out an EP that feels like the best possible version of that sound. This is catchy, crunchy, bouncy, and above all delightfully geeky music that feels like a bunch of Chicago hardcore kids all of a sudden decided to get really into B-52s and Talking Heads, but still wanted to make hardcore. The result fits right in with this current wave of synthpop/new wave-indebted hardcore-adjacent bands.
Hazing Over- Tunnel Vision. It took me quite a while to both get over the loss of Shin Guard and process that the band was more interested in making music that sounds like mid-late 2000s MySpace guitar-nerd deathcore than music that sounds like mid-late 2000s guitar-nerd screamo, but now that the grieving process is over, it's easy to see how well Hazing Over have grown into their sound. This EP sounds like the moment right before glass shatters, full of raging intensity and nervous neurotic energy, and it's secretly very catchy as well. It almost feels like a full-length record at only 11 or so minutes; that's how many different ideas Hazing Over explore within that sonic space on this record.
The Callous Daoboys- God Smiles Upon the Callous Daoboys. I've been a fan of The Callous Daoboys since shortly before Die On Mars dropped and they continue to be one of the most surprising bands in the world. It's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of the whole nu metal revival thing, so believe me when I say that the Daoboys are wholly successful at bringing elements of that into their sound--along with a whole clusterfuck of sonic concepts, to an almost Mr. Bungle or Naked City-esque degree. Unlike those bands, I could also see Daoboys opening for Beyonce on tour. They're the second coming of Botch, the non-shitty version of Issues, and the pop version of Gorguts.
abacot- Promo 2023. Meanwhile, this band is the emo version of Psyopus. Claudio Benedi continues to outdo themself writing and performing mindblowing guitar work without sacrificing the emotional and melodic ideas at the core of their songwriting. Their lyrics have also grown in both prominence and quality since the Commander Salamander days, and songs as viscerally personal and revealing as "Horror" truly feel like a songwriter growing into their own and showing us what they're truly capable. I can't wait to hear more from this band.
Dear Diary, This Is from My Teenage Angst to My Adult Self/Cuando Nada Quede la Naturaleza Tomará su Lugar/Face Turn/Don't Call Me A Friend/Viva Il Ficus!- 5 Way Worldwide Split. I initially listened to this record because Face Turn is a local band and I enjoy their distinct brand of high-intensity twinkleviolence, but I ended up enjoying all the bands (all of whom hail from either Chile or Russia). It's an aggressive, back-turned-to-the-audience, what-about-the-worms? chaotic emo feast that brings me right back to the days of Textbook Traitors, Tristan Tzara, and Cease Upon the Capitol.
The High Cost of Playing God- various singles and splits. The High Cost of Playing God is a metallic hardcore band local to Austin who I have written about before, but I just need to emphasize that pretty much every new release of theirs is a massive step up in quality, and i already liked them a lot. Naming yourself after one of the best songs on one of the best Converge records is arguably setting listeners up for disappointment so it says a lot that High Cost really live up to the challenge with some really creative and unconventionally catchy songwriting and some absolutely filthy vocals. Their lyrics are fucking insanely depressing, too, dude, they make Ringworm sound like Simple Plan.
Dazy- OTHERBODY. Mark James Goodson down as one of the few people who can release an EP of castoffs from last year's album (the stellar OUTOFBODY) and have it be one of the best short-form releases in any genre this year. Goodson's ear for quintessentially 90s-esque guitar pop continues to serve him well and at this point I'm starting to wonder if he isn't getting these ineffable melodies beamed into his head from aliens, such is their consistently high level of quality and the prolificacy with which he writes. I can't wait to see how much further he grows.
BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING: THESE RECORDS RIP, MAYBE EVEN A LITTLE HARDER THAN THE LAST BATCH
Origami Angel- The Brightest Days. Okay, so apparently, the band themselves refer to this as a "mixtape," but if there's anything I've learned from the last six or seven years of listening to rap, it's that the differences between the two are negligible. In any case, Gami continue to hone their blend of shreddy, jazz-fusion-influenced guitar work, acrobatic vocal hooks, and mind-obliterating drumming, with a healthy dose of pop beauty and even a touch of chaotic mathcore for good measure. I've said before that they'll go down as one of the best emo bands of their generation and this just further bolsters my opinion.
Loma Prieta- Last. I am unsure if this will actually be the end of Loma's illustrious career, but I am sure that they are absolute titans of screamo, with an innate sense of how to craft a blitz of post-hardcore better than just about anyone else of their generation. It's heartening to me to listen to this record after being weaned on the Dark Mountain days and know that Loma still has that distinctly West Coast skramz sensibility--as much caustic and sneering as it is sincere and soul-cleansing.
Ostraca- Disaster. Speaking of screamo legends, Ostraca return after 5 years of silence to stomp all over the competition. As much as Loma's sound is distinctly West Coast, Ostraca's is definitively RVA--all open-wristed devastation, with a strong metallic aftertaste and vocals that sound like they're the desperate cries of a banshee phasing in and out between ghostly dimensions. What I'm saying is that Ostraca rule.
Zulu- A New Tomorrow. This year Zulu offered up another intoxicating blend of nimble and versatile hardcore, thoughtful and incisive lyricism, and dense intertextual references. The thing I find most fascinating about Zulu is that they're so unabashedly exuberant. That's not to say that their subject matter isn't often dark nor do they not lend it the gravitas it deserves--it's merely to say that every aspect of this record from beginning to end feels full to bursting with sheer energy and enthusiasm and passion for the project, and it combines with Zulu's undeniable talent to create something that burns bright and refuses to fade.
Mil-Spec- Marathon. Leave it to the unsung champs of the youth crew revival revival (revival) to demonstrate how you pivot from that sense of youthful sincerity to something no less earnest but much more world-weary. Deeply informed by the tragedy and loss of the last several years (and anchored by a standout spoken word piece that will probably make any Power Trip fan weep), Marathon is a thoughtfully constructed and beautiful slice of melodic, introspective, emotive hardcore. I think that this band has the potential to become, if not the Have Heart of this generation, then the band that the Have Heart of the next generation is inspired by. I love their spartan work ethic and no-bullshit persona.
Envision- The Gods That Built Tomorrow. If Mil-Spec has become the more mature and thoughtful take on youth crew, Envision are the standard bearers for being young til they die. The melodic hardcore on this record is just as deeply-felt and smartly constructed as on the Mil-Spec record but it trades in the literary depressiveness for a cathartic sense of righteous fury, and in the process it ends up being a lot of fun. It helps that the guitar tone on this record is also pretty unique, straddling a line between jangly and metallic that I haven't heard since the first inclination EP (and in turn I feel like that was borrowing from mid-to-late period Government Issue). You love to see post-youth-crew evolution wrap back around to influence youth crew revival!
Wound Man- Human Outline. What do you want me to say? Wound Man are one of the few bands who have authentically carried the torch for powerviolence for years, and through many releases have shown that they have a consistent quality to their writing that none of the original powerviolence bands could hope to match (sorry, but you know it's true). This record does the whiplash-inducing tempo changes better than anyone else--the fast parts are so intensely fast they almost give me a headache and the slow parts are dizzyingly sludgy-- and the vocalist is appropriately pissed.
Captain Jazz- Captain Jazz. Yeah, you read that right. This band name is maybe the most Internet-poisoned thing I've been privileged enough to see in this, the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-three, but if any band earns the snark it's this one. The twinkly bits twinkle and the emoviolence is violent, with one of the year's standout DIY vocal performances. It helps that the entire Bandcamp page feels like it was deliberately made to fuck with people who were in the Non-Denominational Emo Facebook group 13 years ago.
Blind Equation- Death Awaits. Blind Equation are, in my opinion, the best band of the current wave of sassy cybergrind revival--I think their blend of beautiful chiptune-influenced synth work, nightmare drum machine patterns, and ultra-processed shrieking vocals yields something extremely inventive and genuinely new. There's a whole scene of this stuff, and it all mines a lot of the same thematic territory of queerness, gore-video internet poisoning, faux-retro MySpace-filtered-thru-Tumblr-filtered-thru-TikTok aesthetics, and existential dread; it's almost like a Prosthetic Records version of Sematary/Haunted Mound. (DEATHTRIPPA, who guests on this record, Twink Obliterator, ZOMBIESHARK!, and thotcrime [RIP] are all great places to start if you're interested.) But for my money, Blind Equation strikes the best balance of nigh-unbearable emotional intensity, memorable synth melodies, and understated heaviness.
Judiciary- Flesh + Blood. Now I admittedly did like the last Judiciary record well enough, but this is a huge level-up in just about every way, with songwriting that feels like it wants to murder you. Other writers have noted that it displays the very specifically Texan hardcore trait of somehow being a metal record and a punk record at the exact same time, and that's true, but I do want to emphasize that A. the vocals, always the most important element of hardcore music for me, are amazing, B. it's extremely hard to impress me with a breakdown and this record is full of impressive breakdowns, and C. there are creative arrangements and solos out the ass on this record.
Home Is Where- The Whaler. Listen, I don't like Neutral Milk Hotel. I never have. I don't know why and at this point I worry that I'm too set in my ways to ever give them an honest chance again. But I'm pretty sure that I don't need to, because Home Is Where effectively synthesizes Neutral Milk Hotel--along with Bob Dylan, Hot Water Music, Reversal of Man, Palatka, and Against Me!, among a million other influences--into a vibrant, eclectic stew of explosive emo that rages, rages against the dying of the fucking light.
Jeff Rosenstock- HELLMODE. Jeff Rosenstock is prrrobably my wife's favorite currently active artist, and therefore this might be the album from this year that I have actually heard the most, but I'm not complaining. It might not reach the dizzying heights of No Dream or the B-side of WORRY., but HELLMODE cements Jeff's position in the pantheon of most consistent punk songwriters, a collection of surprisingly diverse moods and styles with a central thesis of chaos and disillusionment buoyed by just a tinge of genuine hope. Plus it's catchy as fuck.
SPY- Satisfaction. The first in a trilogy of scuzzy lo-fi danceable basement hardcore albums I'm going to feature in this list, Satisfaction is a raw howl from the depths of the soul, a beast of burden that has more in common with the likes of Sarcofago and Hellhammer than what likely springs to mind when you first think "hardcore," SPY is overwhelmingly negative and yet refuses to let that take away from its innate sense of groove. Think first-wave black metal with dance parts and you're on the right track.
Big Laugh- Consume Me. If the SPY record is overwhelmingly negative, then Big Laugh is more like id incarnate, taking as much from the Death Side/GISM/Paintbox school of noisy and nightmarish Japanese hardcore as they do from the post-Bib realm of egg-punk hardcore bands. Taking conventional hardcore punk songs and jamming them full of feedback, static, and unconventional arrangement choices, Big Laugh sound like an inversion of everything that's going on in this side of hardcore right now, and the world is better for it.
Gumm- Slogan Machine. My personal favorite of this whole egg/chain revival-core (or whatever) niche, Gumm succeed because they pour the biggest can of melodic posi gasoline over their hardcore base and take a lighter to it, skanking all over the ashes. Yes, the lyrics and vocals are full of righteous sarcasm (if you remember Negative Qualities by Single Mothers, it actually reminds me of that), but every Revolution Summer needs a Swiz, and Slogan Machine is full of some of the most counterintuitively beautiful riffs you'll hear in a hardcore record all year.
Truth Cult- Walk the Wheel. Truth Cult have been possibly my favorite Baltimore export since I first listened to them in 2018, and they've only gotten better in the intervening years. Their sound is grungy and punky, with some of the most entertaining and unique guitar work in the genre and an absolutely stellar vocal performance. I think this is going to be a band that will have a huge devoted fanbase dedicated to mimicking them in 15 years' time, and that's one of the highest compliments I can give in this world.
Racetraitor- Creation and the Timeless Order of Things. This record is 32 minutes of an all-time top 5 Chicago hardcore band (yeah, I said it) punching you in the face with a pulverizing blend of grindy, crusty, wildly, inventive, lightly blackened hardcore. I am unsure if there was actually a more pissed-off sounding record this year, but that's simply par for the course since Racetraitor has been the angriest band in hardcore since the 90s. Their provocatively confrontational streak that so appealed to me the first time I heard Burn the Idol of the White Messiah is still at the heart of everything they do, and vocalist Mani Mostofi has only become more eloquent and impassioned with age.
Initiate- Cerebral Circus. Initiate are not the band that hardcore deserves in 2023, but they are the band it needs. I thought this record was just lovely, full of catchy and inventive guitar riffs and vocals that split the difference between pop-punk, West Coast 2000s-era youth crew a la Carry On, and early/mid-2000s screamo (basically right before The Wave really became a thing) with aplomb. The whole record just has this really sweet sensibility to it, which helps offset the bitter taste of its requisite fury, of which it has no shortage. Essentially, it's got one of the widest emotional ranges of any hardcore album released this year.
YOU CAN NOW SAFELY ASSUME THIS SHIT IS NEXT-LEVEL
Open City- Hands In the Honey Jar. Dan Yemin is in my top 5 hardcore songwriters of all time, and whenever he releases something, I sit the fuck up and listen. This year we were blessed with not one, but two offerings in rapid succession. Yemin plays guitar in Open City, and you can tell that this record was a chance for him to flex some of his more wide-ranging sonic muscles, utilizing some of the mesmeric repetition and stripped-down arrangements of early 90s Dischord touchstones, while Rachel Rubino's vocals and lyrics are some of the most intimate and intense I've heard this year. I loved this record.
Paint It Black- Famine. The other Dan Yemin project from this year--I swear, I was absolutely feasting. Yemin is the vocalist here, and his lovably familiar hoarse-yet-flexible howl grounds a set of the most blistering 90s-Philly-style hardcore that's been committed to tape since the actual 90s in Philadelphia, with just the right hint of understated filth to really bring out the hooks. As I've said a few times, I'm a Dan Yemin superfan, so please take it seriously when I tell you that this is probably my favorite Paint It Black LP.
Fiddlehead- Death Is Nothing To Us. Pat Flynn is still the poet laureate of the thirty-something hardcore set (yikes--is that now the forty-something hardcore set?) and this time around he neatly ties up all of the pet themes the band has explored across their previous records and in the process basically creates their Return of the King, ie the rare trilogy capper that actually excels at what it wants to do and successfully completes the story these albums were trying to tell (or at least sensibly concludes their emotional arc). The musicianship, of course, remains top-notch throughout as well.
awakebutstillinbed- chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger. what people call low self-esteem is just seeing yourself the way that other people see you was one of the most emotionally impactful albums in my life when it came out in 2018, and chaos takes the wheel is, functionally, the long-awaited follow-up. It does not disappoint, doling out the same blend of addictive hooks, effortlessly witty and soul-bearing lyrics, and an absolute gut-wrenching vocal intensity that sometimes makes my throat burn just listening to it. I think Shannon Taylor is one of the modern geniuses of emo and in time this record will be just as beloved, if not more, than its predecessor.
Gel- Only Constant. When it comes to dirty, raw, hardcore-ass hardcore, Gel wins this year for me, no doubt in my mind. They have every ingredient: gnarly-ass low end, a guitar tone that can bleach your bathtub, and fantastic screamed vocals that simultaneously ground and disorient you. The lyrics? About as far removed from posi bullshit as you can get. The trap interludes? Woozy and wonky. The annoying voicemail messages? Rad as hell. Doesn't get more punk rock than putting something that deliberately irritating in the middle of an album that otherwise is basically a clinic in masterfully economic hardcore songwriting and performance.
Brain Tourniquet- An Expression In Pain. While I'm glad there are bands like Wound Man who are still making traditional powerviolence, and doing it extremely well, I think it's important to remember that in its original form it was outsider music at its most pure--"hardcore for the freaks" as Gel would say. So when less inspired bands than Wound Man use it as a template, it feels like it's flying in the face of what bands like Man Is the Bastard and No Comment represented. That being said, Brain Tourniquet genuinely feel as weird, desperate, and fucked-up as the first wave of powerviolence practitioners, and that's a hard thing to fake. This feels like an Infest record--right down to the 10-minute sludge metal closer--but not once does it ever feel like powerviolence cosplay, and that's special.
Axxe Crazy- Black Winds Blowing, An Indifferent Sky. I have no idea who is in this band or, really, anything about it other than that the Bandcamp page for this album says it was mastered by Will Killingsworth and is tagged "hardcore," "punk," and "Brooklyn." If you remember the first wave of Mysterious Guy Hardcore in the 2000s, this reminds me of that, in that it's a deliberate reaction to the Internet's forced lack of anonymity (and this record's mild influence from noise music), but this is also lo-fi and buzzy as hell, sounding like it's heavily influenced (like many current basement-core bands) by the likes of Celtic Frost and early Bathory, with a horrifying roar in place of vocals, a deliciously disgusting bass tone, and some of the catchiest grooves of the year beneath the layers of grime and muck.
100 Gecs- 10,000 Gecs. I wish this album were a bit longer, and maybe even a bit weirder and more obnoxious, but the truth is that it's not like 100 Gecs have gotten less weird and obnoxious; it's that the rest of the world has finally caught up with them. Hell, the Charli XCX song on the Barbie soundtrack sounded like a lost Gecs track. Dylan Brady and Laura Les continue to splatter their kaleidoscopic blend of influences all over the place with reckless abandon, creating a dense wall of nonsense that's as catchy as it is absurdist. One may miss the occasional bizarre noise interlude from 1,000 Gecs, but it's been replaced by songs that hang together just a little better, and I think in the long run that's ultimately going to be a good thing. I just hope that they don't try to become any more normal than this.
THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S A TOP EIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER
(christ at this point this is like choosing between children)
Portrayal of Guilt- Devil Music. I was actually debating whether or not this release belonged on the metal list or this one, and ultimately I decided to place it here since PoG came up in the screamo scene and out of an entire wave of dark and theatrical metallic screamo bands--see also Wristmeetrazor--PoG have held up the best and evolved the most. This album is arguably an EP, but I honestly disagree. Side A is blackened and sludgy, with songwriting that prioritizes an unnerving atmosphere that feels as though you, the listener, are actually descending into hell. The vocals are perfectly pitched to accompany the music, sounding genuinely frightening and inhuman. Side B is orchestral reworkings of all the song on Side A but with the exact same vocals. It's extremely immersive, off-kilter, and one of my favorite releases of the year.
Angel Du$t- Brand New Soul. I gotta tell you, "Justice Tripp from motherfucking Trapped Under Ice writing what sounds like a long-lost motherfucking Jane's Addiction album, and it's motherfucking great" was really, really not on my 2023 bingo list. (And trust me on this--it sounds like Jane's Addiction, and not the Red Hot Chili Peppers.) I was pretty wary of it going in but that ended up being very silly of me because holy shit the songwriting is just amazing on this record. It's so crisp and fun and overwhelmingly lovely that it's almost hard to write about without resorting to platitudes, which especially sucks because I really don't think I've ever heard anything quite like this before. Hardcore kids don't always make great death metal, but they often do write great power pop, and Brand New Soul is some of my favorite power pop in the world right now.
Home Front- Games of Power. When I woke up this morning, I was really not expecting to listen to this band's record and enjoy it so much that it pretty much instantaneously rocketed further and further up my personal rankings as I was notching down my writeups for this piece, but here we are, in the endzone, and Games of Power has cemented its place as not only the second-best Depeche Mode record of the year (more on that in another list) but one of my favorite DIY-sphere releases of the year, period. The weird thing is, I'm not usually that big of an Oi person so this record's logline of "The Chisel covering Violator" wasn't necessarily something I expected to fall head over heels for, but goddamn was I mistaken. This is about as much pure, blissful fun as one can have in the miserablist synthpop mold.
Jane Remover- Census Designated. I really liked Frailty when it was released in 2021. I thought its uniquely Soundcloudian blend of emo-pop, shoegaze, and glitchy bedroom electronic music was something spectacular to behold. In the wake of Census Designated, Frailty now truly seems like the prototype that it was. Census Designated is proof that Dariacore is the future. I listened to this at work and therefore completely stone sober, and there are moments of almost unbearably beautiful glitchgaze on this record that swept over me like a wave and actually induced euphoria. I am unbelievably excited to hear what Jane Remover does next, because at this rate, I think she has the potential to become a truly generation-defining artist.
Temple of Angels- Endless Pursuit. Look, there's really no two ways about it--Slowdive put out a fantastic record this year, and therefore it feels like anyone trying to release a shoegaze or dream pop record is fighting a real uphill battle. Why bother when the masters have returned? (A similar argument has been made about Hum and their soundalikes.) But Temple of Angels are better than that. Temple of Angels have made an album of spellbinding beauty and fragility, a sweeping, hazy-guitar-and-ethereal-vocal-hooks epic that at 39 minutes feels like an entire universe. Endless Pursuit is the modern successor to Heaven Or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. This was literally the single biggest and best surprise for me this year.
Poison Ruin- Harvest. I was debating putting this on the metal list as well--not because it actually sounds all that metallic, but because aesthetically it seems to fit more into that world. The recording is so defiantly lo-fi that it feels like blackened...something, and there's an undeniable dungeon synth influence that coats the whole affair in woozy 80s RPG melody and a sense of fantastical wonder. But there's discomfort here, too, with lyrics and vocals that feel like howls from the underclass in any time period or dimension. The music itself is ultra-primordial. It's kinda punk, kinda post-punk, kinda Celtic Frost, always extremely catchy even beneath--or perhaps because of--the layers of shitty-as-fuck recording quality. At 33 minutes this is a release that I find myself listening to over and over again.
RUNNER-UP:
MSPAINT- Post-American. I've talked about a lot of artists in this list feeling new, unique, creative, innovative, etc. But MSPAINT manage to infuse that feeling of newness with, counterintuitively, a sense of nostalgia that I think is key to their success and wide-ranging appeal. (Something that, though I like them a lot, Blind Equation aren't getting any time soon.) MSPAINT has hardcore swagger--due in large part to their blown-out, wonderfully aggressive rhythm section--but their music forgoes the traditional guitar-centric songwriting of the genre for a synth-driven approach. It deliberately harks back across multiple generations of reflexive nostalgia: on just the first track there's 80s synthpop commingling with the ethereal melodies that often hung over late 90s/early 2000s breakcore, while Deedee's vocals take as much from classic NYHC bluster as they do from old-school hip-hop cadence. As Nina Corcoran pointed out for Pitchfork, they even incorporate sonic influence from non-musical nostalgic noises like fax machine and dial-up tones. But none of that would mean anything if they weren't good, and MSPAINT write amazing, addictive, deliriously infectious and obviously incredibly passionate music. I hope they become one of the biggest bands in the world because they absolutely deserve it.
AOTY:
Militarie Gun- Life Under the Gun. Did I know this was going to be my favorite DIY-sphere album from 2023 when I first laid my ears on it this summer? Maybe not, but I had a pretty strong suspicion. As a longtime fan of Regional Justice Center and an early adopter of Militarie Gun it's been amazing to see the project metamorphose into one of the scene's guiding lights over the last two years, and Ian Shelton's songwriting only continues to improve, outgrowing the Drug Church comparisons and vaulting themselves into a liminal space between power pop, hardcore, and 90s indie rock touchstones like Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and Guided by Voices--and for a hardcore lifer like Shelton, you can tell he's loving the challenge of stepping outside of his comfort zone. His rough-hewn hoarse clarion call of a voice oozes earnestness and charisma, and for a band that relies so much on the stomp of a great guitar-drum lockstep hook (see fan-favorite "Big Disappointment") it's thrilling that they have the confidence to rely on his voice to drive the hooks as well. Life Under the Gun also has a keen sense of dynamics. There's downbeat slacker anthems like "My Friends Are Having A Hard Time" and "Sway Too" and the brutal mid-paced stomp of the aforementioned "Big Disappointment," but you also have songs like "Never Fucked Up Once," which is maybe the single best guitar pop song of the decade so far. The whole record flies by in under 30 minutes making it easy to just hit replay as soon as it fades out. Bands have been trying to fuse the glimmering beauty and catchy songcraft of 90s power pop and alt rock with the grit and heft of hardcore for years but Militarie Gun might be the band that actually perfected the formula. Long may they reign.
-xoxo, Ellie
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