The2010s is music journalism at its deepest and most thoughtful. In an era of instant reactions, hot takes and public relations disguised as criticism, we’ve tried to craft a site that moves at its own deliberate pace. We’ve interviewed Grammy winners, collected and dissected the best music of the last decade and garnered tens of thousands of listens on our podcast. Now, we’re asking for your support. Before you check out our favorite albums of 2023, please go to our Patreon page and consider chipping in a few bucks. We’ve got perks from custom made playlists to behind the scenes content and are honored to have your support.
Ψευδομένη/ Τρωθησομένη/ Ἀντιτιμωρουμένη - Hoplites
On January 1st 2023, Ὁπλίτης (Hoplites) burst out of the gates with Ψευδομένη and planted a war flag into the cold, barren ground, stating that this was the year they would establish themselves as a force to be reckoned with. On that day I over-exuberantly exclaimed, "we've got our album of the year!", because it sure AS HELL felt like the seething, punishing, downright oppressive sonic palette on that album was something that would be rattling around in my brain all year long. Well, I was right, and they could've rested on their laurels right there and still had a seat at the table for this list, HOWEVER, the unrelenting chaos was piled on top of us two more times with Τρωθησομένη on April 15th and Ἀντιτιμωρουμένη on October 8th. Are you kidding me? They made sure we never gained our composure, just constant pummeling with dissonant noise and haunting chaos. Three albums in one calendar year, a cross, hook, uppercut felt by anyone brave enough to press play and endure it. 2023 is the year of Hoplites whether you like it or not. - Dead
Agriculture - Agriculture
I’ve never seen a black metal band smile as much as Agriculture. It suits them. The LA band describes their sound as “ecstatic black metal”. That could be seen as a shrewd marketing ploy meant to rile up the kvlt, but what else are you gonna call this? Agriculture conjures drama and intensity, but there’s no room for the genre’s typical icy misanthropy. Agriculture’s ferocity is much closer to the Sun screaming across the sky. Near constant tremolo picked guitars glimmer like polished steel. Fitting considering how often they sound like they’re going to war. The occasional saxophone blast or pedal steel wail add an organic and pastoral feel, but what really sets the band apart is when everything goes still. The four-piece lock themselves into blissfully tangled walls of sound that may as well be the black metal equivalent of a deep, rejuvenating breath. - Trey
Cyclamen - Nuria Graham
Núria Graham’s Cyclamen is a burst of beautiful, quirky charm. Graham tiptoes across jazz influences, folk musings and outright surrealism, all delivered with a bizarre smile. The cyclical motions of “The Catalyst” or “It’s Me, The Goldfish!” are gleaming puzzleboxes to unlock over dozens of listens, all while they worm into the subconscious.
Desire, I Want to Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek
The 2020s have seen sprawling revivals of genres once thought of as silly or cringe. Look at the legions of Nu-Metal acolytes or Hyperpop’s dedication to ring-tone worthy hooks. But at their worst, they feel too insistent. Look this was cool the whole time! They seem to plead. Alt-pop star Caroline Polachek has no need for pandering. Or for others’ opinions. Flush with niche influences from the 1990s, from Enya styled ambient to ravenous trance tracks, Polachek doesn’t care for what’s cool or cringe. She seeks, and reaches a physical, tangible transcendence. The blissed out trip-hop of “Billions” imagines “sexting sonnets under the table,” while downtempo “Crude Drawing of an Angel” has Polachek sketching her lover in her notebook as he sleeps. Sex and pleasure radiates from every note of Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, from the title onward. But Polachek is firm that her ecstasy is found in kindness and care. “I was born to get you home,” she sings on the vibrant bounce of “Pretty In Possible,” half pick up line, half affirmation that her hand, and impossible voice, are here as a warm guide.
Dogsbody - Model/Actriz
“Oh it feels like….oh it feels like PRESSURE,” mewls then commands Cole Haden. Outside of the impeccable sequencing that makes Dogsbody’s centerpiece “Crossing Guard” flow directly into the stuttering seduction of “Slate,” there’s a thesis thrown into the chaos. Pressure, pleasurable and claustrophobic, is the sound of Dogsbody. Like a more sexually repressed Nine Inch Nails, New York’s Model/Actriz by turns are elegant and repulsive. Jack Wetmore threatens his guitars with a bewildering collection of torture tools and the rhythm section is set to “bludgeon.” When I saw Model/Actriz, it felt like a coronation, Haden dancing into the crowd, directing hundreds of people into the palm of his head. The sexual politics of Dogsbody affirms that the submissive always gets what they want. And what they want is more.
Heller Tag - Conic Rose
The internet has wondered for years: who’s more dangerous, a jock that listens to jazz or a buff nerd? I’d like to add a second question: who’s sexier?
Berlin outfit Conic Rose are firmly in the former category, combining lo-fi beats, nu-jazz smoothness and a pinch of Radiohead-esque rock to give the songs a jagged edge. What’s remarkable about Heller Tag is how dexterous the album is. Adorable crooners like the title track are slotted next to pulsating workout fodder like “Gleisdreieck” and classical inspired summer jam “Chopin Rosé.” So who’s sexier? Heller Tag answers.
Maps - billy woods and Kenny Segal
Here’s a short list of things billy woods will enjoy while he’s skipping soundcheck: sunsets from a parapet, spliffs that remind him of “Jamaican oranges that look like limes” and listening to Cam’ron in Bruge while flirting and calling it “diplomacy.” He’s got no time for the practice or the pantomime, he’s too busy living life. Maps, the second collab between woods and LA producer Kenny Segal strikes a more vibrant tone than their last, the shuddering Hiding Places. The duo chart a trek around the world, with shows from Brooklyn to Bratislava, woods the most vulnerable he’s ever been. This is a fine introduction to his thorny world. Still, he can’t help but go into doomsayer mode occasionally. Over a blossoming orchestra booming out like the shockwave from an IED, woods shouts his thesis: “I lied down like V.I. Lenin/ People don't want the truth, they want me to tell 'em grandma went to heaven.”
Ontological Mysterium - Horrendous
Horrendous were key to the old school death metal wave of the 2010s, but traditionalists they are not. Rather than simply playing like it was 1992, Horrendous seemed much more interested in rewriting death metal’s history. After a decade of tweaking the genre's formulas and expanding its possibilities, Horrendous have finally let their hair down. The fifth record, Ontological Mysterium, is the sound of a seasoned band giving into their most wild-eyed and exploratory impulses. The explosive thrash and Randy Rhoades leads of “Chrysopoeia (The Archeology of Dawn)” culminate in death metal that truly soars. “Exeg (en) esis” sounds like Eddie Van Helen sitting in on a Voivod jam session. Much of Ontological Mysterium explores a more colorful and expressive space, but Horrendous aren’t above some sleaze. The strutting closer “The Death Knell Ringeth” is Horrendous at their most heavy metal and even those riffs roll out with a velvety elegance. Forget “old school”. We may not even be able to call them death metal anymore. The genre’s never sounded so alive. - Trey
Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century - mui zyu
Somewhere, a wizard has a panic attack. It’s not an image that fantasy uses often. It feels too close to reality, the terror too mundane to grapple with. But mui zyu doesn’t just wrestle with it, she revels in it. On her solo debut Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century, the British-Hong Kong mastermind unwinds convoluted threads of electronica, warped pop and indie rock into an engrossing, disquieting journey through a fantasy world with all too real horrors.
棲居在溪源之上 Seeking the Sources of Streams - Cicada
Sometimes you find a pretty album. And sometimes you find an album so beautiful you break down in tears. Taiwanese quartet Cicada play a heartfelt and heart wrenching style of chamber-folk, predicated on an gracious sense of restraint. Sly woodwinds, floating guitars, cascading pianos and graceful violins all egg each other on to become more gorgeous, more enthralling. Though many of these songs stretch out beyond the 9-minute mark, none of it feels overlong. If anything, it feels like life: so, so long and much too short.
The Store - AL West
I think it was the third day of 107 degrees that broke me. Lying in my room, staring at my ceiling fan, cat staring at me like “what the hell did you do to make me suffer through this?” I felt torpid, like sludge instead of blood was running under my skin. There was nothing that I wanted more than the first brushes of fall to turn the leaves, and turn back the brutal heat. Daniel Bryson knew this exact feeling, and translated it perfectly. The Austin-based slowcore crooner made a lounging, peaceful, wistful collection of country adjacent tunes that sound like Duster choking on Texas humidity. As beautiful as it is tender.
Yonder - Arbor Labor Union
Yonder; it’s over there somewhere. Or over when, either way, it’s just ‘round the corner. There’s a pleasantly surreal implication to Yonder, the word, and Yonder, the album. The same could be said for the merry band of rabble rousers who gesture you yonder. Atlanta guitar gardeners Arbor Labor Union play rapid psych country like the Grateful Dead with a stopwatch, ripping through post-punk flavored twang. There’s no Cheshire Cat smirk to their reality-bending notions, just a grin and a high dive into a labyrinth of intwining guitars and dime-turn tempo shifts. So, let’s follow them. Yonder.