Another year begins. This time I'm adding Country of origin next to the rating and genre.

1.Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

2.Wayfarer - American Gothic

3.Varathron - The Crimson Temple

4.Hellripper - Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags

5.Shylmagoghnar - Convergence

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Same deal as always - scenes if I somehow manage to break the 1200-album record I hit last year

1.Sermon - Of Golden Verse

2.Ne Obliviscaris - Exul

3.Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

4.Enslaved - Heimdal

5.Moonreich - Amer

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Pretty much everything I’ve listened to this year, let me know what I’ve missed and what you’ve found and cheers to 2024 being even better 🍻

Check out my seven favorite album covers that I’ve looked at so many times this year, they’re fucking awesome:















Here’s a link to some of my favorite songs from the year, max 2 per album: Best Songs of 2023

1.Silent Planet - Superbloom

2.Sermon - Of Golden Verse

3.Voice Of Baceprot - Retas

4.Bees Made Honey In The Vein Tree - Aion

5.TesseracT - War Of Being

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1.Sulphur Aeon - Seven Crowns And Seven Seals

2.Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite

3.Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

4.Fires In The Distance - Air Not Meant For Us

5.Wayfarer - American Gothic

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1.Hanging Garden - The Garden

2.Katatonia - Sky Void Of Stars

3.Obituary - Dying Of Everything

4.Runemagick - Beyond The Cenotaph Of Mankind

5.Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current

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"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."

- Vince Lombardi

1.Tailgunner - Guns For Hire

2.Alkaloid - Numen

3.Non Est Deus - Legacy

4.Årabrot - Of Light And Darkness

5.Mephorash - Krystl​-​Ah

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2023 here we go. My target for the year is 100+ albums, at a rule of 2 albums a week minimum.

1.Nospūn - Opus

2.Periphery - Periphery V: Djent Is Not A Genre

3.Sleep Token - Take Me Back To Eden

4.Crow Black Sky - Sidereal Light: Volume Two

5.Against Myself - Tides Of Insanity

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Not totally clean, and I had to cut some categories to stay in the 1000 lines limit.

1.

2.Avatar - Dance Devil Dance

3.Avenged Sevenfold - Life Is But A Dream...

4.Code Orange - The Above

5.Death Dealer Union - Initiation

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1.Shylmagoghnar - Convergence

2.Sacred Outcry - Towers Of Gold

3.Fires In The Distance - Air Not Meant For Us

4.Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite

5.Moonlight Sorcery - Horned Lord Of The Thorned Castle

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1.Insomnium - Anno 1696

2.Nospūn - Opus

3.Katatonia - Sky Void Of Stars

4.Ironmaster - Weapons Of Spiritual Carnage

5.Sleep Token - Take Me Back To Eden

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The list has gone back to it's original format: my favorites of the year regrouped and ordered by release date (now earliest at the top). The ranked list thing didn't work out for me in the end.

1.Ahab - The Coral Tombs

2.Beyond The Black - Beyond The Black

3.Crom - The Era Of Darkness

4.Haxprocess - The Caverns Of Duat

5.Obituary - Dying Of Everything

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The goats. The near perfect albums that never get old. Some are full of catchy bangers I'm always humming, and some are so full to the brim of details that I still haven't even uncovered them all.

A brief outline of my ratings:
8.5-9.0 = An excellent album with a few mild drawbacks (Weak song, slightly irritating vocals, odd flow)
9.0-9.5 = Perfect albums that haven't quite warranted the time-earnt 9.5+.
9.5-9.9 = Perfect albums that have stood the test of time, ranked by preference.
10 = I don't expect to hear another album like these, ever.

(I use 'perfect' lightly as it makes no sense for a man-made creation to be flawless. 'Perfect' is simply a term to outline how high a level of enjoyment is, specifically the level of enjoyment when minor faults become insignificant.)

(I evaluate albums outside of metal vastly differently to the ones here, which explains the lack of representation of my other favourite genres. Blue Sky Mining is an exception due to being structured very similarly to my optimal metal album. I may add some picks from other genres down the line.)


STATS:
I know y'all don't look at my lists, so these are purely for my own interest.

-Decades
'10s: 37
'20s: 25
'00s: 7
'90s: 2

-Genres (By best fit or most prominent)
Prog: 35
Death: 11
Power: 9
Symphonic: 4
Black: 4
Soundtrack: 3
Contemporary: 2
Folk: 1
Doom: 1
Rock: 1

1.Devin Townsend - Empath

2.Memories Of Old - The Zeramin Game

3.Wintersun - Time I

4.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

5.Persefone - Aathma

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1.Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current

2.Kauan - ATM Revised

3.Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite

4.Moonlight Sorcery - Horned Lord Of The Thorned Castle

5.Fires In The Distance - Air Not Meant For Us

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1.Avenged Sevenfold - Life Is But A Dream...

2.Metallica - 72 Seasons

3.Voice Of Baceprot - Retas

4.Nospūn - Opus

5.Dominum - Hey Living People

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1.Riverside - ID.Entity

2.Katatonia - Sky Void Of Stars

3.Obituary - Dying Of Everything

4.Uriah Heep - Chaos & Colour

5.In Flames - Foregone

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