Stuff I Missed in 2023
Because a human radar that scours the internet to find 2,285 new releases is still imperfect and insufficient
Hopefully this isn’t part one of multiple posts chronicling my shame and regret (but it could be).
One would think that I would not need to look at AOTY lists published after January 1, 2024 to find hidden gems that eluded me in 2023, but one would be wrong. I guess really did need to dig deeper to find and listen to those additional 15+ records to get over the 2,300 mark. I’ll try to do better in 2024. For now, during this very short time period in early January, while there’s a relatively low number of new releases in the metal world, I am continuing to listen to things I missed, overlooked, or simply did not give enough time to last year.
If you haven’t already, you should take a look at my AOTY posts here and here. There’s enough content in those posts to keep anyone busy for weeks. Meanwhile, the streams keep coming, old and new. Therefore, a music writer’s job is never done.
An Added Focus on Unblack Metal
My discovery of Trébuchet SDG in the last quarter of 2023 had a major impact on me and is, even now, altering my approach to music discovery. This interview will give a glimpse into why. As a result, in 2024, I will be actively on the lookout for more Christian black metal, a.k.a. unblack metal, having been given hope that there is some incredibly good stuff out there in that subgenre. Just in the last week or so, I have been pleased to discover others who are actively promoting quality unblack metal, like Blacforje Magazine. These revelations will, undoubtedly, enhance my ability to find and draw attention to more and more great bands going forward.
In this vein, among other very good bands I already had on my radar, Vials of Wrath’s Ataraxia 1 & 2 probably should have been, in hindsight, included in my AOTY list. This is a jewel of an album that is the blackgaze style par excellence. If unblackgaze wasn’t a thing before, it is now. But this album is not that alone. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi that I think only the artist’s setting in the mountains of East Tennessee can inform. I’m picking up Panopticon-level vibes here in terms of the artist being in touch with his natural surroundings, and that’s saying a whole bunch of something.
Texan act, Within Thy Wounds, definitely should have been on the list, but for some reason I was confused about the release date for Ringing the Bell of Gleaming Martyrdom So, unfortunately, although it was on my radar, I failed to listen to it in 2023, thinking it was coming in early 2024. Nevertheless, in spite of the unintentional snub, this is an exceptional album that needs to be heard!
Among the albums I missed altogether is Fathomage’s Autumn’s Dawn, Winter’s Darkness, and, man, I wish I’d found this one sooner. You know those days that call for really good atmospheric folk metal (like most of them)? Yeah, here’s what to queue up early and often on those days.
Another is Immaculate Hearts Will Triumph by Great Cold Emptiness, which—while not explicitly unblack/Christian—scratches the itch quite well, especially if you’re looking for something post-black, atmospheric, and doomy. You’ll even encounter tasteful elements of shoegaze, trance, and EDM in their music. This album takes the listener on a journey that is paradoxically uplifting while acknowledging our collective downtrodden condition.
If instrumental atmospheric black metal is your cup of tea, then you’ll find in the “wilderness ascetic” unblack arrangements of Подвижник (Podvizhnik) a good place to start.
Sweden’s Kärv and the Dutch act, Duister Maanlicht, connected for a split release in November that runs over 32 minutes. On the A side, Kärv brings a crust punk element to his unblack arrangements. Harsh vocals overlay brutal blast beats and machine-gun double bass, as melodious strings weave a stark beauty into the structure. The listener is subtly transported through a cavernous soundscape that ultimately overwhelms the senses in its most climactic moments. Lovely interludes and outros offer calm in the midst of the carefully-organized chaos. On the flip side, Duister Maanlicht offers up as solid an execution of the ideal raw black metal sound as you’ll find. Do not resist the natural impulse to head-bob along in half-time with the blistering snare. (Head-bobbing is the subdued alternative to headbanging for middle-aged metalheads prone to neck soreness and inflammation.) This is confirmation that what’s now playing is good and enjoyable, y’all.
I don’t have a lot to say about Toreva’s Stipendia Enim Peccati Mors, other than it’s frantic and openly anti-Protestant (from a Roman Catholic perspective). But, hey, we’re used to getting verbally attacked in black metal lyrics. I’m including it here because I really dig the music, especially the drums.
Sometimes you just want to put on an album that goes hard. The Powers That Be by Mercy is one of those albums. Musically, this is no cursed-and-blighted-garden-variety black metal. The vocals blacken it up, but this is metal in a blender, with healthy portions of death, progressive, and Viking metal thrown into the recipe. I’m picking up on a dash of thrash in there, too. The production value is really good, and that’s not an utterance typically made about black metal. It’s atypical, and in this case, in a way that’s not contrived. This is an outstanding album from start to finish.
Lastly, I will highlight Troparion, whose summer 2023 LP, Synaxis of the Frostbitten, shows the immense potential of unblack metal. I imagine—as difficult as it can be as a Christian fan of extreme metal to find likeminded folks having similar tastes with whom to sit around and have a conversation about this music—it must be immeasurably more difficult to find enough other talented musicians locally to form a fill-in-the-blank-subgenre band. The specificity of criteria that must be met is preposterously narrow. Hence we see the upside of one-man bands like Troparion, like Trébuchet SDG, and others featured here who do what they do out of necessity, and they do it well. Troparion, as you will hear, does it quite well.
Leave a comment on this post with any other releases I might have missed.