2023 was one of the worst years of my life, and you can take that to the bank. I still don’t know if I will talk about that in public… probably not, as it involves idiocies and failings on my part, and is generally a period I wish to put firmly in my rear view. Suffice to say it was a dark chapter, and it is behind me now. On the positive side, I did play a lot of guitar, finish the writing and recording for my second solo album, and spent a good long time learning about mixing and production. So it wasn’t a total bust.
The COVID-19 pandemic continued to decline and the WHO called an end to “global health emergency” status. Huge cyclones and earthquakes killed hundreds of thousands, and continuing wars across the globe claimed perhaps millions more. Several large American banks imploded, as did five billionaire dickheads in a tin can. On April 14th, ESA launched the wonderfully named JUICE to look for life around Jupiter, and in further billionaire dickhead news, six days later Space Karen launched the most powerful rocket ever created. It exploded after four minutes. This test flight spread sand and soil over communities in a 6.5 mile radius, and caused a brushfire that burned 3.5 acres of state parkland. :golfclap:
Chazzy Tré got his mum’s hat, Belarus signed an agreement letting Russia station tactical nukes on its territory, which I expect is probably FINE and NOT A PROBLEM, AT ALL. Greek wildfires, Barbenheimer, Hawaiian wildfires, Rupert Murdoch retired, Canadian wildfires, the Beatles released a new song despite 50% of them being absolutely dead at the time, and did anyone notice the world is burning?
Among those running down the curtain and joining the choir invisible were Fay Weldon, Gianluca Vialli, Jeff Beck, Lisa Marie Presley, Julian Sands, Christopher Light[1], Burt Bacharach, Raquel Welch, John Motson, Mystic Meg, Lance Reddick, Lily Savage (Paul O’Grady), Mary Quant, Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries), Harry Belafonte, Jerry Springer, Tina Turner, Silvio Berlusconi, Cormac McCarthy, Glenda Jackson, Kevin Mitnick, Tony Bennett, George Alagiah, Sinéad O’Connor, William Friedkin, Michael Parkinson, Molly Holzschlag[2], Mike Yarwood, Roger Whittaker, Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum), Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), Bobby Charlton, Shaft (Richard Roundtree), Chanandler Bong (Matt Perry), Charlie Dominici, Joss Ackland, Annabel Giles, Terry Venables, Shane MacGowan and Benjamin Zephaniah.
Honestly. What a load of old shit that year was. I only made it through thanks to some serious help from two very special people (you know who you are). But while all that nonsense was going on, some rather good music was released unto the world.
The one-liners
- Extreme – Six. (Rock.) Nuno and friends return with a couple of great singles and a patchy album.
- Foo Fighters – But Here We Are. (Rock.) Dave and the gang are back with their first album since the passing of Taylor Hawkins. It’s good, like always, with a touch of inevitable extra poignancy.
- Greta Van Fleet – Starcatcher. (Rock.) Nothing especially new from the retro-focused Michigan quartet, but then, isn’t that largely the point?
- George Lynch – Guitars at the End of the World. (Instrumental rock.) Would you like some George Lynch with that? Yes, you would.
- Kylie Minogue - Tension. (Pop). Another lovely 50mins with Ms. Minogue. Not quite as good as Disco, but worth it for “Padam Padam” alone.
- Mr. Fastfinger – Tremors. (Instrumental rock.) Terrifying Finn Mika Tyyskä and his fast fingers serving up melodic shred tunage.
- Plini - Mirage. (Instrumental.) Ol’ Plinners is beginning to go a little more fusiony than I usually like, but I’m still sticking with him for now at least. Musicianship sans pareil.
- Queens of the Stone Age – In Times New Roman…. (Rock.) I can’t quite tell if I like this or not.
- Nita Strauss – Call of the Void. (Metal.) Nita absolutely shreds, no doubt, but apparently (like Slash and myself) she does not do the singing so she has recruited some guest warblers here (Alice Cooper, David Draiman and Lzzy Hale among them), plus a smattering of instrumental metal tracks. Inconsistent, but good overall.
- Jakub Zytecki – Remind Me. (Ambient shred.) Lo-fi ambient heavy dream-shred-gaze. I’m coining that here and now. It’s good, also.
OK, ready? Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.
Honourable mentions
Black Stone Cherry - Screamin’ at the Sky
I first stumbled across Black Stone Cherry in around 2008 or so, when their excellent second album Folklore and Superstition was doing the rounds. Went to see them play live and everything. Right good, they were. From then onwards I was a little dismayed to see them appear to contract a severe case of what I think of as “Aerosmith Syndrome”. Each album seemed to have a higher percentage of ballads than the previous one, and even the heavier rockier tracks began feeling over-produced and lifeless. I was mightily pleased, then, to check back in with them and discover that this album is much more in keeping with those first couple of records. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Top track: “Screamin’ at the Sky”
Buckcherry - Vol. 10
It’s Josh Todd and the gang’s tenth outing, and you should know what you’re going to get by now. Josh’s voice and Stevie D’s riffage are on point for 37 tight minutes of hard rocking that never leaves you in any doubt. Even the cover of “Summer of ’69” works surprisingly well. Cracking. Top track: “Keep On Fighting”
Peter Gabriel - i/o
Here’s a chewy one… this is Gabs’s first album of new material since 2002’s excellent Up, and yes he has been working on it all that time[3]. Gabriel is something of a perfectionist and has been tweaking and meddling with these songs for two decades… for so long in fact that even now, when the album is released, he still couldn’t decide on how the overall mix should sound. For this reason, you get the whole album twice – the same twelve songs in the same order, first in their “Bright-Side Mix” configuration, followed by the “Dark-Side Mix”. Fair enough. It does feel a bit like “Oh… I don’t know… YOU decide! Here, have both versions!” but… you know, this is Peter Gabriel. I can forgive him that. For what it’s worth, I prefer the “Dark-Side” overall. It feels a bit more like a cohesive album production than the “Bright-Side” versions. YMMV, of course. What’s in no doubt is septuagenarian Gabriel’s vocal ability. He sounds as good as he ever has (which is very good indeed). Top track: “Four Kinds of Horses”
McRocklin & Hutch - Press Start
Thomas McRocklin and Tim Hutchinson absolutely blew me away in 2019 with their gangbuster shredwave debut Riding Out – an utterly holy marriage of 80s vaporwave retro electronica and blistering lead guitar, and an unabashed homage to 80s rock and cult movies. Does the gag work a second time? Yes, it sure does. Most of the tracks on this second album were released as singles in the wake of Riding Out, so if you’re a fan like me, you may already have most of them, but if not then you’re in for another treat. Top track: “Distorted Dreams”
Metallica - 72 Seasons
Cards on the table, I’m not fussed about a lot of Metallica’s catalogue. I dig The Black Album, I like some tracks off the old stuff, and St. Anger was utter tripe. Didn’t much care for Death Magnetic either, and I pretty much stopped caring around then. My mate, see, he’s a ’tallica old-skooler, right. He reckons that Master of Puppets is the high-water-mark for Bay Area thrash, and who am I to say he’s wrong? That’s his opinion and he’s welcome to it. Turns out we both like this one, though. Thrashy! Top track: “72 Seasons”
Nuclear Power Trio - Wet Ass Plutonium
It was back in 2020 when this absolutely barking trio dropped their EP A Clear and Present Rager and generally floored jaws all round with their incredible musicianship, wrapped in over-the-top bombast and pomp, and on top of it all shrouding their real identities behind masks[4] so that we are presented with what appears to be Trump, Putin and Kim all giving it absolutely six-nowt shred-wise. Novelty, for sure, but the musicality speaks for itself and this is a really fun album even when you aren’t watching the goons in the suits. Top track: “Nyetflix and Chill”
Paramore - This Is Why
Paramore are a lot like DragonForce, when you think about it. Well, actually no they aren’t at all, but what they do have in common is that my first exposure to them was when playing Guitar Hero on my old Xbox 360. I always meant to go back and check out Paramore properly, because I very much enjoyed the cut of their jib, but never got around to it until 2023 (some 15 years after their songs appeared in Guitar Hero: World Tour). From the moment I put This Is Why on to play, I had a smile on my face and I still do whenever it comes up. Lovely album, this. Top track: “Running Out of Time”
The Totemist - Less We Know
In 2021 the wonder that is Rabea Massaad graced us with a side-project called The Totemist and dropped a crushing three-song EP from a great height. It was solid, but brief. This time we get four tracks which are, if anything, even more brootz than last time. Absolute slab. Top track: “Dos Huevos”
Voyager - Fearless in Love
Every time I think about Voyager it’s Danny Estrin’s astounding clean vocals that leap to the fore of what I laughably call my mind, but that’s a disservice to the rest of the band and also their songwriting prowess. To my mind no-one does heavy pop-prog as well as this, save perhaps the mighty Devin Townsend, which is no faint praise. Also, with Voyager, you’re less likely to encounter the sometimes neck-breaking genre shifts that Devin is fond of. You’re in with a pretty good bet that if you like a couple of tracks on a Voyager album, you’ll likely enjoy them all (not something I can confidently say about the undeniably amazing Mr. Townsend). Top track: “Submarine”
Steven Wilson - The Harmony Codex
I opined back in 2017 that we are lucky to live in the era of Steven Wilson, when he romped home with the top prize for his arresting album To the Bone, and I stand by that. The man is a giant of the British prog scene, whether with his band Porcupine Tree, his outstanding solo ouvre, or his various side projects. All of this quite aside from being a top-notch producer, mixer and audio engineer, and of late building a reputation for being one of the best remixers/remasterers in the business, specialising in spatial audio remixes. That’s quite a lot of talent for one guy from Hemel Hempstead, really. I personally found his 2021 disc The Future Bites to be good, but not as good as I wanted it to be. This heinous crime is rectified here on The Harmony Codex, which is fabulous. By turns lush and dense, sparse and haunting, uplifting, and occasionally unsettling. Great stuff, and as always, a guest spot from Ninet Tayeb does no harm whatsoever. Top track: “Rock Bottom (feat. Ninet Tayeb)”
You Me At Six - Truth Decay
If you’re anything like me—and I know I am—then you have been digging these boys from Surrey since you first heard them. Right? Damn right. You’ll be saddened then, as was I, to hear that this is to be their final album, and they are breaking up after their 2025 tour. Maybe I’ll actually get around to going to see them, if the tickets aren’t too ludicrously priced… yeah right. Either way, this is another cracker from Josh F. and co. with some of their best songs yet. Top track: “No Future? Yeah Right”
And the winner is…
Sleep Token - Take Me Back to Eden
Allllllll righty, then.
I’ll be honest with you, this one has been sewn up since the beginning of 2023.
The scenario: it is mid-January, and I am not in a good mental state. For reasons I shan’t go into, I have had a pretty stressful couple of months and then Christmas itself, and the wine is free-flowing to compensate. New year is out of the way, and the return to work plus the cold of winter are squashing what little spirit I have left.
I find myself alone at the computer late one night, glass of wine in hand, wandering down social media, and notice that a number of people are suddenly talking about a band I have never heard of. The name is completely unfamiliar, and I cannot discern anything from what anyone is saying regarding what kind of music they play, what genre they are, where they’re from, anything. All people are saying is:
You’ve really got to listen to Sleep Token.
What kind of a name is that? One of my friends who is saying this is deeply into death metal and deeply screamy hard stuff that I can’t listen to (although by no means is that all they listen to), and another who is frothing equally about them is into punk and industrial and a bunch of other stuff that I don’t really get (as well as metal and many other things), and I can’t get a single handle on what this band (is it a band? is it a mood? is it a genre? is it a man from Grimsby?) might sound like. Apparently lots of people are losing their minds over a song called “The Summoning”, which sounds like a metal song name? OK, maybe that’s what we’re talking about. But people are also saying that their music crosses lots of different genres[5]. Then one of the aforementioned friends says something like “Yeah loads of people are losing their minds over “The Summoning” (and rightly so), but all of it is just so NNNNNNGH.” (I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the gist.)
So I get another glass of wine and fire up YouTube. I search for Sleep Token and press play on the first video I find, which is “Granite”. If you haven’t heard it, go on and give it a go just here.
Bruh, I was shook.
I was instantly captivated by the song and the video, and went looking for more. It turned out that “Granite” was one of four songs the band released within two weeks in early January 2023, the others being “Chokehold”, “The Summoning” and “Aqua Regia”, all of which had appeared on YouTube with similar videos. I devoured these and went looking for more. On the way I found a very entertaining reaction video from Nik Nocturnal, metal guitarist, YouTuber, metal reviewer and streamer, who was on his channel with his audience at the moment “The Summoning” was released, and while I don’t get reaction videos most of the time, this one I do find extremely fun (especially when you know how the song ends, and Nik doesn’t…)
So then I’m hooked. I go looking for older material, and for info on the band. The older material exists—Take Me Back to Eden is their 3rd full-length album—and it’s great, though it doesn’t grab me as hard as these four songs have, so I just loop the four videos whenever I’m sat at the computer for a bit.
Info on the band turns out to be something else entirely, though. It turns out that the band are anonymous… the singer is simply called “Vessel” while the other members just have numbers. II is the drummer, III is the bassist and IV is the guitarist, and they all wear masks. OK, we’ve seen this kind of thing before, see Ghost and Slipknot among others for details. But there’s more.
When they first signed to a label in 2017, the label put out this “description”:
"A band that goes above and beyond simply writing and playing music, Sleep Token are said to be “the mortal representatives of the ancient deity known only as ‘Sleep’, led by the masked and cloaked figure appointed ‘Vessel’ … the master creator behind the music.”
When I got into them, the band had only ever given one interview—Vessel spoke to Metal Hammer magazine in 2017—and that was it. No more info. Nothing on socials, no more interviews, and even when you watch videos of them playing live, they do not speak. Vessel sings, IV does some screamy vocals as well, and that is all. Since then, II has done a video interview and playthrough demo with the Drumeo channel, and his voice was masked using effects, and his answers to questions sometimes deliberately vague and mystical sounding.
So… at this point, you either buy into the schtick or you don’t. Yes, you can find out the names of the members if you happen to care and know how to use a search engine. Yes, you can find videos of the band playing open air festival gigs in the daylight where the smoke machines and light show aren’t really helping and they look a little odd hopping around in their black getups not talking to the audience. Yes, you might say “I can’t be doing with any of that D&D shit”, and that is all fair enough. I’m not here to defend any of it, but I will say that I really like all of it.
So then in May 2023, the album was released, and it was every bit as good as I had dared to hope. Much has been made elsewhere about their “fluid approach to genre” and their label even said “in a world of form and genre, Sleep Token cannot be confined”. If you have listened to “The Summoning”, you’ll know that they’re quite happy to shift between genres in one song but that also translates to the album as a whole. There are songs which are 100% flat-out heavy-as-balls throughout (“Vore”), there are pop-friendly songs that have no heaviness at all (“DYWTYLM”), ballady songs that would play fine on the radio without scaring the norms too much (“Are You Really Okay?”), there are sexy jams (“Aqua Regia”, “The Apparition”), and there are long proggy numbers that combine it all (“Ascenscionism”, “Take Me Back to Eden”).
The production is sumptuous yet spacious throughout, always serving the song, and putting Vessel’s soulful voice right up front while the rest of the band weave around him.
Special mention must go to the drummer, II. He is absolutely incredible. Check out this isolated live playthrough of “Hypnosis” from the band’s second album This Place Will Become Your Tomb. I was lucky enough to see Sleep Token live at Wembley in December 2023 and I can confirm that what you hear on the albums is II being restrained and playing for the song. Live, he is an utter powerhouse.
Sleep Token are a Marmite band[6], and personally I love them. I get that some people will be put off by the theatrics and the costumes, and that’s fine. If you need to see the guitarist’s face, or know the bass player’s name, or just plain don’t like it when they dress up funny[7], no worries. Even then I would still argue that you can happily just listen to the music and love it regardless.
Unless you don’t like their music, of course. If that’s the case, then I can’t help you.
Top tracks: “Ascensionism”, “Chokehold”, “The Summoning”
Turkey of the Year
I was so disappointed by the Extreme album Six that it was TotY for a while. Once I’d gotten over the hype of the “Rise” solo, and how absolutely and thoroughly great Nuno is[8] throughout, I realised that actually only a couple of the songs stuck with me, and the elephant in that particular room…
Gary Cherone is just awful. He was alright back in the day, when his vocal chops were strong, but now… he just sounds like everything is a struggle, and it sounds bad.
However, metal’s most prolific 70yo wins the race to the bottom this year with one of his many side projects…
The Banishment - Machine and Bone
It’s no secret that we love us some George Lynch here at Clive’s Album of the Year. He’s usually somewhere in the runners and riders with at least one entry, be it a solo effort, a Lynch Mob[9] or KXM album, or some other side project. This is one of the latter, and it claims to be an “industrial rock and dream punk” collaboration between Lynch, multi-instrumentalist Joe Haze, and artist and vocalist Devix Szell.
Bollocks, more like.
My father-in-law. RIP. ↩︎
In the mid 2000s I went to quite a few web development conferences in London. In case you didn’t know, that’s what I do for a job, and these conferences were always a great way to keep up with what was going on at the bleeding edge, and stay abreast of the industry. Molly was one of the original people who inspired me to become not just someone who makes/programs web stuff, but to be a creative web developer. She was a fierce advocate of the open web and web standards, she was a CSS sorceror, and she was possessed of a fiery wit, as my boss and I discovered one night out drinking with her after one of these conferences. RIP. ↩︎
Twenty years? Two whole decades? To make one album? Loser. Honestly. Some people. ↩︎
There’s a lot of this about at the moment – more on that later. ↩︎
Yes, many bands do this, that’s not so remarkable. What I didn’t realise at the time was that they meant several different genres in the same song. ↩︎
As in, “you either love it or hate it”. Irritatingly, whenever something is described as “a Marmite whatever”, some insightful commenter will leap in with both size 10s and say “HAHA funnily enough I can take it or leave it! I think they’re just OK! I don’t love or hate them! HAHA! You’re wrong!” Yeah OK, mate. I’m the same about Marmite, funnily enough. You know what I mean, stop being a pedant. ↩︎
I assume you don’t like Kiss, Slipknot, Gwar, MF DOOM, Ghost, Rob Zombie, Buckethead, Cradle of Filth, Daft Punk, Immortal (in fact any black metal outfit tbh), Alice Cooper or Deadmau5 for the same reason. ↩︎
Nuno Bettencourt is the Keanu Reeves of rock music. FACT. (Yes, I’m aware Keanu also plays in a rock band. Sorry. He can’t be the Keanu Reeves of rock music, because Nuno is. Maybe Keanu is the Nuno Bettencourt of movies?) ↩︎
Speak Your Brains
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