LISTMANIA 2023: A YEAR-END LIST FROM TODD MANNING

(As we continue rolling out the year-end lists of our writers, today we move to selections from Todd Manning.)

I think I found the formula for my year-end list last year. Every year, once my own list is finished, I pour over every other list I can find and I am reminded I am a fan first, musician and writer after. So I will keep it brief and give you a bunch of records I loved and I hope you find something new and exciting to check out.

 

1. Thantifaxath – Hive Mind Narcosis

These guys are incredible and have been since their inception, but Hive Mind Narcosis really elevates them to the next level. Weird and terribly abrasive at the same time. Avant-garde but so visceral. Strange melodies emerge from the darkness, only they are more unsettling than the more straight-forward brutal sections.

 

2. Poison Ruïn – Härvest

I didn’t have black metal meets seventies punk on my checklist this year but now that I’ve heard it I know it’s great. Mash up Venom and Darkthrone with the Ramones and Dead Boys and add a smidge of dungeon synth and you have a genius record.

 

3. Cromlech – Executive Summary

Industrial metal is a favorite of mine but hardly anyone gets it right. Manchester’s Cromlech does though. The metal is shot through and through with just enough abstraction and despair to capture that feel of early Godflesh, Pitchshifter and Scorn.

 

4. Panopticon – The Rime of Memory

I’ve been doing these year-end lists for awhile now and looking back, it’s interesting to see how a certain type of black metal has become very central to me. You’ll see a couple more albums on this list that play to that, but Panopticon nail it. This just dropped so I’m still getting to know it but it’s obviously brilliant.

 

5. Flesher – Tales of Grotesque Demise

So black metal is becoming more and more important to me, but the early nineties underground is homebase. Flesher’s debut is a love letter to early nineties American death metal (and horror movies) that will strike a chord with metalheads of a certain age. Early Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse feature here, but so do a hundred other bands from that era.

 

6. Primordial – How It Ends

2007’s To The Nameless Dead is one of my all-time favorite metal albums, so I have no idea why I haven’t kept up with Primordial’s albums since. How It Ends shows me the error of my ways. While it might not be quite as good as To The Nameless Dead, this is still a fantastic record. A.A. Nemtheanga belts it out like a black metal Bruce Dickinson and I consider him one of the most underrated vocalists in metal.

 

7. Blackbraid – Blackbraid II

Sometimes when a band is really hyped up I run the other way. It’s my problem not theirs. I overcame my inner curmudgeon and recognized this album for what it is… incredible. This album takes you on a spiritual journey.

 

8. Krigsgrav – Fires in the Fall

Krigsgrav’s album scratches an itch similar to Panopticon and Blackbraid, so I fear I’m being redundant. But for those who love this particular brand of metal, Krigsgrav is the one least known and that’s a shame. These guys are killer and you need to check them out.

 

9. Afterbirth – In But Not Of

I’m normally not a brutal death metal guy, not in the Unique Leader and modern Willowtip sense anyway, but I don’t hate that stuff either. While Afterbirth certainly emerge from that school, they’ve morphed into something completely different. Crazy technical but shot through with a Pink Floyd influence, along with some jazz fusion and psychedelia in general, I’m feeling what they’re laying down.

 

10. Deathgrave – It’s Only Midnight

Death metal that is both covertly technical and punk aware at the same time, this record is so much fun. Ghastly fun but fun nonetheless. Greg Wilkinson has done time with Autopsy, Brainoil, and Graves at Sea, and if that doesn’t earn any of his projects an automatic listen I don’t know what will.

 

11. Vomitheist – NekroFvneral

Vomitheist aren’t necessarily colring outside the lines with their rather Swedish-inspired take on death metal but they have something that sets them ahead of the pack. Riffs. I mean endless fantastic riffs. It’s that simple.

 

12. Vastum – Inward to Gethsemane

Vastum have been excelling at dirty-ass death metal for years but this record represents a creative pinnacle. Occasional moments of weirdness mesh with death metal so nasty you feel like you need a shower after listening. Get covered in filth.

 

The Obligatory Runner-Ups:

Victory Over the Sun – Dance You Monster to My Soft Song!
Eave – Fervor
Spirit Possession – Of the Sign…
Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium

 

EP’s and Split

1. Undergang – De Syv Stadier Af Ford (death metal)
2. Hyperdontia – Deranged (death metal)
3. Shitstorm – Only in Dade (grindcore)
4. Worm/ Dream Unending – Starpath (split death-doom)
5. Faster Than the Devil – compilation (blackened thrash)

 

Metal-Adjacent

1. Oxbow – Love’s Holiday (David Bowie meets noise rock. If I put this on the main list it’d be in the top three)
2. Yellow Eyes – Master’s Murmur (Experimental, Neo-Folk, Industrial, Blackened but not metal)
3. Militaire Gun – Life Under the Gun (melodic hardcore punk)
4. Fiddlehead – Death Is Nothing to Us (also melodic hardcore punk)
5. Diego Caicedo – Seis Amorfismos (black metal guitar and vocals and an avant garde string quartet)

 

Yearly Nerd Stats

At this time of this writing, I’ve listened to about 184 records released in 2023. That’s way down from last year’s 202. That makes this list to be about 14% of the albums I’ve heard.

The last couple years have been hard for my writing. I am suffering from the dreaded corporate takeover at work and it’s effecting me from doing the things I truly love. Even though I’ve considered quitting writing, I really should just double down on doing the things I love. I’m playing music again, time to dive deeper into the writing as well.