Model/Actriz – Dogsbody
Thrashing, dark, and violent, the first full-length album from NY No-Wavers Model/Actriz is arguably the best record to come out this year. It begins with a single tone, then a guitar lick that crawls around your ear like a bug, and after Cole Haden’s restrained intro, the album breaks into unrelenting intensity for the next four tracks. The instruments may as well be pistons, cogs, and chains, all being strained to their physical limits, pulsing together in a synthesis of industrial brutality and infectious danceability that surpasses anything in this vein in recent memory. The album’s more dynamic second half toys with the listener, slowing down only to whiplash you into another salvo of ferocity. The final tone of ‘Sun In’ is the same one that begins ‘Donkey Show’, as if to entice one to listen to it again from the top once the end is reached.
Highlights: Well… everything.
shame – Food for Worms
Unifying all the elements they’ve demonstrated across their work thus far, shame comes together on Food for Worms in their most mature and compositionally diverse record yet. Charlie Steen’s vocals take on yet more dimensions over top of some of the best post-punk instrumentation around. It’s an album that impresses at first blush, but grows the more you listen. Read (or re-read) our show review if you like.
Highlights: Six-Pack, Orchid, The Fall of Paul
boygenius – the record
The much-lauded LP from collaborators Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus somehow exceeded the colossal level of expectation that preceded it. It spawned not only one of the most exciting tours of the year but also a companion EP entitled the rest that caps the album cycle with a handful more of tracks that showcase one of the most genuine and engaging collaborations between any artists this decade or the one prior. Each has come into their own staggeringly since their debut EP in 2018, but they fit together even better than they did then.
Highlights: $20, Cool About It, We’re In Love
RVG – Brain Worms
While their time in the States has been brief, Australian group RVG is one to be sure to see when they return. Their first record, 2017’s A Quality of Mercy, established their sound and showcased Romy Vager as a supremely talented songwriter right from the get-go. She and her band have only risen higher since then, and Brain Worms is wall-to-wall some of the best lyricism and delivery seen in 2023. The band usually employs clear guitar tones as part of their palette, but the murky synths of ‘Squid’ are just one element that makes that song a contender for the best individual track released this year, the apex of how emotionally evocative a piece of music can be.
Highlights: Midnight Sun, Squid, Giant Snake
100 Gecs – 10,000 Gecs
Delivering on the implicit promise of their multiplicative album naming scheme, the electronic duo gets louder, sillier, and more adventurous. It’s no wonder they’ve become synonymous with “hyperpop” as a genre, but on 10,000 Gecs they demonstrate their effortless ability to flit between genres like ska and nu-metal. Show review here.
Highlights: Dumbest Girl Alive, Frog on the Floor, Billy Knows Jamie
Jeff Rosenstock – HELLMODE
Rosenstock continues his streak of incredible LPs under his own name, proving once again he’s a flagship of contemporary punk music at its finest.
Highlights: HEAD, HEALMODE, GRAVEYARD SONG
Genesis Owusu – Struggler
Dripping with Kafkaesque existential drama drawn between a roach and God, ARIA-winner Genesis Owusu’s 2023 offering is a wall-to-wall tour-de-force, and the artist’s finest LP yet. The deluxe edition adds another great cut that didn’t make the original eleven, entitled ‘Survivor’. Revisit our coverage of his Boston-area stop here.
Highlights: Leaving the Light, Tied Up!, Stay Blessed
Black Country, New Road – Live at Bush Hall
The rare live album that is notable in and of itself, it sees the English collective take its first steps out from the shadow of a departure that would have crumbled lesser bands. Coalescing around both new and pre-existing material, the ensemble cast flourishes here, proving that necessity has only furthered their development as a group.
Highlights: Up Song, Turbines/Pigs, Dancers
Frog – GROG
The Queens outfit, now a literal band of brothers, has been quietly making some of the most endearingly idiosyncratic alt-folk music out of the East Coast for the past ten years or so. GROG continues the trend with another album full of strange internal monologues and slices of life, all the while turning out some certified capital-T Tunes in the form of its most compositionally complex tracks, such as ‘Black on Black on Black’ and ‘Maybelline’.
Highlights: Goes w/o Saying, Black on Black on Black, So Twisted Fate
Mitski – The Land is Inhospitable, and So Are We
Mitski’s newest record sees her embrace the stylings of ornate chamber pop and subdued acoustic folk in roughly equal measure. Her unmatched talent for introspective songwriting is on full display, in an album full of lonely imagery made painfully beautiful in song.
Highlights: The Deal, My Love Mine All Mine, I’m Your Man
JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES
Another high-profile collaboration that turned heads this year, JPEGMAFIA’s team-up with Danny Brown is every bit as oddball and perfectly-produced as you might expect. The title track is the star of an album wherein both artists are firing on all cylinders, each song bringing some truly wild bars from two of the most talented people in modern rap. (Photos from Peggy’s solo stop in Providence earlier in 2023.)
Highlights: SCARING THE HOES, Garbage Pale Kids, Where Ya Get Ya Coke From?
Home Front – Games of Power
Not since Ceremony’s tectonic stylistic shift has there been such a successful union of hardcore punk and new wave sound. An exemplary record that also features a standout guest contribution from The Chisel.
Highlights: Faded State, Nation, End Transmission
Squid – O Monolith
The newest from the studious drummer-led post-punks is an understated one at times, but it’s a record that rewards repeated listening to uncover all its fantastic sonic layering and experimentation. And the passages in which Ollie Judge does cut loose are as thrilling as they’ve ever been.
Highlights: Swing (In A Dream), Undergrowth, Green Light
Geese – 3D Country
Singer Cameron Winter’s elastic voice leads Geese’s fun, jammy second album. Wearing a skin suit stitched from classic rock tropes, the band bends and morphs them into something consistently interesting and delightfully weird.
Highlights: 3D Country, Mysterious Love, Tomorrow’s Crusades
Pons – The Liquid Self
Another of New York City’s true gems, the unhinged antics of the double-drummer band birthed their second and finest album. Unyielding and angular, it culminates in the twelve-minute opus ‘Big River’, showing that Pons are here both for a good time and a long time. They were also among the last bands to play Providence, RI’s now-shuttered last house venue, seen here.
Highlights: Hooks, Crabbing the Bucket, Big River
And that’s all for 2023! Stay tuned for more in 2024 – it’s already shaping up to be quite something with releases from the likes of Sleater-Kinney, The Smile, and Idles on the calendar.
All photos and words by Collin Heroux