The Top 10 Albums of 2023

It’s finally tap to cap it all off, until it all starts over again in 2024. Here are Vinyl Fantasy Reviews’ top 10 albums that released this year.

10. Lo! – The Gleaners

RATING: 84/100 – Very Good

The heaviest album of this list by far, Lo!’s ‘The Gleaners’ exists as a ferocious socioeconomic commentary through the lens of medieval mythos. 

Brutal, sludge-tinged metal pummels the listener repeatedly as Lo! paint a picture of a world on the verge of collapse, people picking through the waste and rubble just to survive. Whether via the vicious frenzy of ‘Rat King’, or the biblical cataclysm that is the title track, Lo! manage to sound brilliantly menacing, delivering a condemnation of excessive greed with captivating and ever so slightly theatrical performances.

9. Benefits – Nails

RATING: 85/100 – Mostly Excellent

An album of deep catharsis, Benefits dropped one of the most abrasive, aggressive, and unapologetic records of the year with their debut LP, ‘Nails’.

The album ebbs and flows with a righteous rage, at times little more than frontman Kingsley Hall delivering spoken word over soft lo-fi beats like on ‘Shit Britain’, and at other times an overwhelming, shouted manifesto to not bow to the owning class over pummelling yet minimalist beats like on ‘Warhorse’. It can hardly be described as a pleasant listen, but it feels like Benefits have no desire to craft such a thing; this is an open and honest conversation on the state of Britain, and how it feels to exist within the confines of its rain soaked misery. This is an album that will go down as an important and landmark noise rock record, no doubt.

8. Paramore – This Is Why

RATING: 89/100 – Mostly Excellent

Frankly, there’s little more to say on this album that hasn’t already been said.

Legendary emo band Paramore returned this year with what many consider to be their best album to date. An unexpected post-punk affair, ‘This Is Why’ sees the band maturing in all manner of ways, grappling with their superstar role in a world that has changed dramatically since their last album back in 2015. It’s an understated and nuanced affair, but the band execute it with such flair that it’s impossible not to find it deeply compelling to listen to.

7. The Ongoing Concept – AGAIN

RATING: 89/100 – Mostly Excellent

The Ongoing Concept returned at long last this year with another utterly ferocious and frenzied album with ‘AGAIN’.

Their fourth album to date, ‘AGAIN’ saw the band taking their blues packed post-hardcore sound and expanding upon it in every way imaginable. Sounding bigger and more fierce than ever before, tracks such as ‘Prisoner Again’ and ‘Feel Again’ are guaranteed to get you on your feet with their phenomenal grooves, whilst ‘Saloon Again’ playfully points to the band’s past with a theatrical flair. All of it is brought together by the band’s insane vocal performances, swinging between jazzy heartfelt melodies and explosive screamed vocals that are undeniably The Ongoing Concept.

6. pulses. – It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like This

RATING: 89/100 – Mostly Excellent

I keep writing about this band recently, but it’s for a simple reason: no one is doing it like pulses. are. 

The four-piece returned with their third album this year, and with it showcased that they are more than just the fun, funk filled post-hardcore band they’re known as. ‘It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like This’ borders on being revelatory in how it melds post-hardcore with black history, culture, and style. Effortlessly pulling influences from hip hop, ska, RnB, blues, and a whole host of other sounds, the band goes on to produce something that is not only a lot of damn fun, but creative in a way that only they and a few others, such as Issues and nightlife, can pull off. 

For one final time this year: it’s pulses. babyyyy!

5. Harm – a song you can’t feel anymore

RATING: 90/100 – Excellent

One of the most deeply underrated albums this year arrives in the form of Harm.’s sophomore effort, ‘a song you can’t feel anymore’.

This is a gorgeously constructed experience from start to finish, with an incredible usage of light and shade to sculpt monolithic tracks that  envelop you in luscious ambience, before hurtling you into some of the most monstrous breakdowns you’ll hear on a record so far this decade. Whilst the closing track found a place on my Top 50 Songs of the Year list, it wasn’t an easy decision; ‘I Fear Only That My Rage Will Fade Over Time’ is a genuinely beautiful gaze-tinted number, with a spellbinding, silky vocal performance, whilst ‘But Then There’s A Pause…’ hits you with a ferocious heaviness that could start a pit in a church.

If you haven’t listened to this record yet, then please feel free to start your 2024 on an excellent note with this as your soundtrack. 

4. Holding Absence – The Noble Art Of Self-Destruction

RATING: 90/100 – Excellent

The third album from alternative rockstars Holding Absence has proven to be their most acclaimed to date, and it’s not hard to see why.

An album in the truest sense, this is a beautifully constructed narrative of self-acceptance and triumph over self-doubt. From the dark beginnings of ‘Head Prison Blues’ and ‘A Crooked Melody’, to the revelatory second act with uplifting and defiant tracks like ‘Honey Moon’ and ‘Death Nonetheless’, the album runs with a concept of individuals all being beautiful works of art in progress, and that the legacy we leave can be seen in the love around us. All of this culminates in the sublime closing track ‘Angel in the Marble’, which ties it all together in a grand and sweeping manner.

3. Dreamwell – In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You

RATING: 91/100 – Excellent

Entering the top three, we are treated to a blistering screamo album that is as deeply emotive as it is gut-punchingly brutal.

Dreamwell dropped a phenomenal sophomore record this year, delivering killer performance after killer performance as they grapple with heartbreak and self-loathing. The vocals are wonderfully delivered, alternating between brilliantly theatrical and deeply heartfelt, and the instrumentation is sometimes a tool to bludgeon, and sometimes a wonderfully complex beast that requires multiple listens to truly appreciate.

2. HMLTD – The Worm

RATING: 93/100 – Excellent

If I had a nickel for every time a band on this list made a social commentary through the lens of medieval feudalism, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t many but it’s strange it’s happened twice.

HMLTD’s ‘The Worm’ is the sophomore release nobody expected. Gone is the glittering electronic fronted art pop, and in its place, a wildly experimental and cinematic experience that pulls from genres such as jazz, post-punk, and progressive rock. All of this is used to spin two parallel tales. One is of a behemoth worm that has swallowed England, plunging it into a dark era of oppression and hydroplane warfare. The other tale, however, is a real one of one man’s journey to overcome a very dark and all-consuming depression, gripped by a loss of faith in the world around him.

It’s a baffling and confusing album, but also a genuinely beautiful one. The sheer weirdness of it all may seem too much at first, but spent some time with the worm, and you’ll find you’re not too dissimilar from it yourself.

1. Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden

RATING: 100/100 – Perfect

There was only one choice for Album of the Year this year. Some say they’re overrated, others say that they’re overhated. Either way, it’s impossible to deny just how important Sleep Token have been this year.

Commencing 2023 as alternative cult favourites, and ending it as one of the biggest modern metal acts around, it’s been an insane year for the masked collective. From internet virality, to sold out arenas, all of their success is underpinned by their brilliantly versatile music, drawing inspirations from metalcore, progressive rock, RnB, and many more genres to produce something that feels totally fresh and relevant. All of this is demonstrated perfectly on their magnum opus, ‘Take Me Back To Eden’.

Capping off a trilogy of albums that commenced with ‘Sundowning’, this brings this era of the band to a close, tying together the mystical and human elements of the outfit in one final, grand statement on obsession, redemption, and moving on. Whether via the slick, swaggering funk breakdown of ‘The Summoning’, the minimalist synth beats of ‘DYWTYLM’, or the multi-phased and progressive metal grandeur of ‘Ascensionism’, the band work hard at producing not just music, but works of art that feed into one another in a celebration of what makes music albums so so special in an era of streaming. 

Your Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Album of the Year 2023 is Sleep Token’s ‘Take Me Back To Eden’.

VINYL FANTASY REVIEWS ALBUM OF THE YEAR

2021: Adjy – The Idyll Opus (I-VI)

2022: Birds in Row – Gris Klein

2023: Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden