Lankum is an Irish folk group interpreting traditional songs through a dark postmodern lens. Not for the faint of heart, this relentlessly bleak album rarely lets in the light. If a doom metal band suddenly began interpreting Steeleye Span on a steady diet of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, it might come out sounding like Lankum’s foreboding, cinematic take on traditional folk. Find it on Bandcamp.
#23From2023 - #WITCH – Zango (Desert Daze Sound). 40 years after this Zambian “Zamrock” collective made its last studio album, the revived group (two original members backed by musical allies from Europe) returns with a scintillating fusion of rock, funk and Afrobeat. Most of the original members (WITCH stood for “We Intend to Cause Havoc”) died during Zambia’s devastating AIDS epidemic. This new album rekindles their spirit to reclaim the Zamrock crown and rock your world.
#23From2023 - #Wednesday – Rat Saw God (Dead Oceans). This Asheville, North Carolina outfit creates an off-kilter hybrid of rootsy Americana, urban noise and shoegaze sounds. Karly Hartzman brings her Lucinda Williams-style drawl to more conventional numbers like “Chosen to Believe,” after screaming bloody valentines on longer excursions like “Bull Believer.” Guitarist MJ Lenderman released his own “live and loose” set a few months after Rat Saw God took off.
#23From2023 - #JohnScofield – Uncle John’s Band (ECM). The jazz guitar legend teams with double bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Bill Stewart for a double album that grooves and contemplates on a range of material. Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Neil Young’s “Old Man” and the Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band” get a modern treatment through Scofield’s fluid lines with a touch of amplifier breakup. More typical jazz fare like Miles Davis’s “Budo” fills out a diverse and lively set.
#23From2023 - #AlexandraStréliski – Néo-Romance (Secret City). Playing against the conventional neo-classical tag, this Montreal pianist-composer channels the likes of Friedrich Chopin on an all-original set of modern romantic pieces. Dark and emotionally charged, the music highlights Stréliski’s fluid and often sparse piano lines, embellished with chamber strings for added atmosphere. Like #RyuichiSakamoto, Stréliski makes meditative music for a winter’s night.
#23From2023 - #SufjanStevens – Javelin. Stevens returns to singer-songwriter mode on a set of ballads exploring life lessons and resilience in the face of tragedy. “Everything That Rises” turns a Flannery O’Connor trope into a haunting spiritual quest. “Javelin” is a wry meditation on chance and circumstance. The interpolation of “There’s a World” revises one of Neil Young’s lesser-known tunes. Stevens works mostly alone with guest turns from his folk and indie compatriots.
#23From2023 - #Slowdive - Everything is Alive (Dead Oceans). Seldom does a band on a second career run match the quality of their work 30 years earlier. I'm not saying this release tops Souvlaki, but Slowdive's deeper plunge into billowy dreampop is a natural progression from 2017's comeback effort. I miss the Cocteau Twins so damn much, and while "Alife" and "Kisses" aren't that, Neil Halstead and company bring a similarly keen melodic factor to their new work.
#23From2023 - #SleepToken – Take Me Back to Eden (Spinefarm). Metal needs another clan of nameless ghouls like it needs a hole in the skull. But this UK combo sustains the year’s biggest metal buzz by mixing up raging riffs and apocalyptic screams with Anathema-like progscapes (“Ascensionism”) and Depeche-influenced technopop (“Aqua Regia”). Refreshingly free of Ghostly arena pomp, Vessel and his masked crew deliver enough epic crunch to offset the album’s Edenic ambitions.
#23From2023 - #RyuichiSakamoto – 12 (Milan/ Commmons). Japanese composer and classical/ electronic innovator Sakamoto lost his battle with cancer in March of this year. This final cycle of twelve pieces, identified only by date of composition (2021-22) is a meditative set with stark, minimalist beauty channeled through Sakamoto’s piano with electronic textures. Its late-night ambience makes it perfect for those evenings when you feel like dialing down the noise of the world.
#23From2023 - #Riverside – ID.Entity (InsideOut/ Mystic). Poland’s Riverside are one of the few bands still making prog without an overlayer of extreme metal to summon appeal on the festival circuit. That makes them an acquired taste, but Mariusz Duda’s vocals add melodic richness (think Peter Gabriel by way of Guy Garvey) over the group’s knotty riffs and extended peregrinations on “Friend or Foe?”, the timely “Post-Truth,” and Kansas-like centerpiece “The Place Where I Belong.”
#23From2023 - #QueensOfTheStoneAge – In Times New Roman (Matador). After a 6-year pause, there’s no need for QOTSA to return to form – since they’ve never flagged on any of their eight albums. This year’s set dials back the dance and prog turns of 2017’s Villains, going for the throat on supercharged anthems like “Obscenery” and “Emotion Sickness.” People tend to love or hate (or at least not get) QOTSA. This album won’t change that, but for anyone who’s a fan, it delivers.
#23From2023 - #Paramore – This is Why (Atlantic). After a six-year break, Paramore disrupt their pop punk origins with new wave guitar licks, knotty funk basslines, and Blondie-fied disco. A darker worldview inhabits the agoraphobic title track and bittersweet “Liar” – like one of Madonna’s ballads washed in dreampop. Hayley Williams is bright as ever, but the first Paramore album of her thirties shows her voice maturing on “Running Out of Time” and “Big Man, Little Dignity.”
#23From2023 - #Orbital – Optical Delusion (Label: Orbital). Considering they’ve been raving for more than 30 years, brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll still sound energized on this year’s set of electronic thrill rides. From the pop inflections of “Are You Alive?” to the aggressive shakedown of “You Dirty Rat,” collaborators Penelope Isles, Sleaford Mods and others help vary the mood and tempos on an album showing no signs of flagging since 90s classics like Snivilization.
#23From2023 - #Mitski – The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We (Dead Oceans). Mitski’s stark folk-rock echoes the likes of Lana del Rey and Weyes Blood. But on “Buffalo Replaced,” “Heaven” and the hit “My Love Mine All Mine” the lonely cadence of her voice negotiates with the cosmopolitanism of her upbringing. Baroque strings, pedal steel and gospel choruses deepen songs that enable pop, classical, and folk traditions to coinhabit a single musical timeframe.
#23From2023 - #BradMehldau – Your Mother Should Know (Nonesuch). The US jazz pianist has been interpreting rock deep cuts since the 90s, when his Art of the Trio series included Jarrett-influenced takes on Radiohead and Nick Drake. On YMSK, Mehldau doesn’t so much transform “I Am the Walrus,” “Baby’s in Black,” “She Said She Said” and other Fabs songs into jazz as draw out harmonic subtleties they already contain. A closing rendition of Bowie’s “Life on Mars” fits right in.
#23From2023 - #Ghostwoman – Hindsight is 50/50 (Dine Alone Music). This duo from Alberta, Canada evokes psych-rock from both the 60s and 80s-90s Paisley Underground, veering occasionally into noise-rock excursions a la early Sonic Youth. Their second LP of 2023 (after the Byrdsier “Anne, If”), Hindsight sees Ghostwoman refining their songwriting on tracks like “Yoko” and “Juan,” whose classic melodicism glimmers through the lo-fi fuzz. Find both albums on Bandcamp.
#23From2023 - #PeterGabriel – i/o (Real World). The surprising return of Gabriel in 2023 happened in a trickle, as “Panopticom,” “Playing for Time,” “Olive Tree” appeared as singles on successive full moons. The complete set coheres remarkably well considering its two-decade incubation, and Gabriel’s voice retains its gritty intimacy despite his advanced years. Although it lacks the era-defining lyrics of his 80s work, i/o has the sound and feel of an artist still pushing boundaries.
#23From2023 - #IrisDeMent – Workin’ on a World (Flariella). On her latest disc, DeMent applies her Arkansas drawl to a set of songs lamenting current injustices while celebrating the past progress of “people who were workin’ on a world they never got to see.” DeMent’s gospel inflections bring a positive note to even her darkest subjects, while the musical accompaniment (directed partly by her daughter Pieta Brown) layers horns and jangling guitars for a classic roots-rock feel.
#23From2023 - #CrownLands – Fearless. Although they over-emulate Rush – right down to opening for Kiss on this year’s tour – the Ontario duo of Cody Bowles and Kevin Comeau capture the scope and thrill of old-school prog like no other contemporary band (far more than the fastidious Steven Wilson or Riverside). It’s worth remembering, too, that even Rush were largely a Zeppelin cop until a few albums in. If this is Crown Lands’ Fly By Night, let’s hope they have a 2112 in ‘em.
#23From2023 - #JaimieBranch – Fly or Die X3 (World War). When jazz trumpeter Branch died tragically in 2022, she left us a gleaming alloy of music blending jazz with folk, rock, electronic and worldbeat. Completed posthumously by her bandmates, this set veers from the exotic groove of “Borealis Dancing” to the simmering block party of “Burning Grey.” “Baba Louie” has an almost trip-hop feel. “The Mountain” turns a Meat Puppets (!) tune into an evocation of Appalachian lore.
#23From2023 - #Boygenius – the record – Comprised of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, this trio’s first album (after a 2018 EP) harnesses the strengths of all three singer-songwriters on a set that varies from folky introspection (“True Blue,” “Letter to an Old Poet”) to brooding rock (“$20,” “Anti-Curse”). Nods to Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon seal the connection to classic confessional songwriting, and billowing harmonies complete one of the year’s best releases.
#23From2023 - #GabrielleAplin – Phosphorescent – Overlooked by all the major reviewers, this set of stately pop by the UK singer-songwriter shone through my transom early in 2023 and hasn’t left since. Like a hipper Taylor Swift or less morose Lana del Rey, Aplin combines pop textures with classic instrumentation in songs that feel grown up and vulnerable at the same time. “Never Be the Same” and “Take it Easy” sound like instant hits waiting to happen.