MS Awards 2023 - Staff Picks!!
| Written by: | ScreamingSteelUS |
| Published: | March 10, 2024 |
We draw the Metal Storm Awards season to a close with this last official retrospective of 2023: the staff picks, where we on Metal Storm's staff vote for our own favorite releases of the last year in a celebration that makes mockery of the public MSAs with its superior choices. We had a few ties this year, mostly some clean and easy wins, but black metal was interesting: we had a three-way tie between Urfaust, Pa Vesh En, and Moonreich that became a two-way tie between Urfaust and Pa Vesh En. I informed everybody beforehand that any unresolved ties would result in that category's staff pick automatically being given to Cyndi Lauper's 1986 classic True Colors, and we came very close to that coming true. Unfortunately a last-minute resolution declared the winner to be Moonreich anyway. Better luck next time, Cyndi.
2023 Metal Storm Staff Picks
 | Alternative Metal Mutoid Man - Mutants |  | Ambient / Drone / Noise Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent |
 | Avant-Garde / Experimental Metal Thy Catafalque - Alföld |  | Black Metal Moonreich - Amer |
 | Death Metal Sulphur Aeon - Seven Crowns And Seven Seals |  | Djent / Math Metal Hypno5e - Sheol |
 | Doom Metal Wolvennest - The Dark Path To The Light |  | Extreme Doom Metal Fires In The Distance - Air Not Meant For Us |
 | Extreme Progressive Metal Fleshvessel - Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed |  | Folk / Pagan / Viking Metal Ershetu - Xibalba |
 | Gothic Metal Thragedium - Lisboa Depois De Morta |  | Grindcore Gridlink - Coronet Juniper |
 | Hard Rock Green Lung - This Heathen Land |  | Hardcore / Metalcore / Deathcore Unfurl - Ascension |
 | Heavy / Traditional Metal Tailgunner - Guns For Hire |  | Industrial / Cyber / Electronic Metal Health - Rat Wars |
 | Melodeath / Extreme Power / Gothenburg Metal Phlebotomized - Clouds Of Confusion |  | Melodic Black Metal Wayfarer - American Gothic |
 | Metalgaze Summer Haze '99 - Inevitable |  | Post-Metal Cursebinder - Drifting |
 | Power Metal Sacred Outcry - Towers Of Gold |  | Progressive Metal Sermon - Of Golden Verse |
 | Sludge Metal Melancholia - Book Of Ruination |  | Stoner Metal Bees Made Honey In The Vein Tree - Aion |
 | Symphonic Metal Genus Ordinis Dei - The Beginning |  | Thrash / Speed Metal Hellripper - Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags |
| Debut Fleshvessel - Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed |  | Clandestine Cut Chullachaqui - Oblivion |
Here ends the 2023 cycle, with a black metal album winning the black metal staff pick as it should (although this result is less interesting, to be honest). We'll see you all next year.
 | Written on 10.03.2024 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct. |
Comments
Comments: 7
Visited by: 109 users
| musclassia Staff Posts: 7621  |
Off the back of a pretty even Staff Pick-MSA winner split in 2022 in terms of my own first choice albums, this is probably one of the most unbalanced cases of the Staff Picks aligning with my tastes more than the MSA winners - there's 10 of my personal favourites here vs. 2 in the MSAs (I also can't separate Hypno5e and TesseracT, so I'll say it's 10.5-2.5), plus me also getting a Staff Pick in CCs. Curiously enough, the only time where I found myself favouriting the 'big name runs away with it' MSA winner is Insomnium, whose win was met with a lot of disappointment in the results thread (which I can understand, as Moonlight Sorcery, Kalmah and Pronostic in particular were also all excellent albums).
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| Nejde Posts: 1695  |
I'm just happy that Tailgunner got the staff pick for heavy metal as it was my AOTY without competition. I was really disappointed to see it finish second to last (not counting the very strange 17 write-in votes for Metallica. Heavy metal? Seriously?) but it got the vindication it deserved here instead.
---- Liebe ist für alle da.
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| A Real Mönkey Posts: 1176  |
Now these are results I can agree with.
---- Need a break from headbanging? Restore your street cred by visiting my hip-hop list! Tha Swagnum Opus: A Selection Of Hip-Hop For The Curious Metalhead
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7557  |
"2022 Metal Storm Staff Picks" It should be 2023. or I should be missing something.
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| Bluemobius Posts: 17  |
Idk, maybe I am just wrong but I thought the Tailgunner album was really boring.
---- I'm back
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| Vellichor Posts: 571 |
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| Guib Thrash Talker Posts: 3220  |
Huge difference, except for best debut, alternative and hard rock. Nothing else is similar to me.
---- - Headbanging with mostly clogged arteries to that stuff - Guib's List Of Essential Albums - Also Thrash Paradise Thrash Here
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