I don’t know about you all, but I am absolutely drunk on quality 2023 metal releases (or maybe that’s the whiskey). I’ll be doing a poll after nominations are in. I’ve already made my own personal rankings, and there were so many solid albums, I’ve written 4 lists: Big Bands (>2000 listeners on Spotify), Secret Killers (<2000: this one will need to be double-length because many tech death bands fall below this threshold), EPs, and Off-Genre (I expect most of us listen to other metal genres, and some releases deserve the spotlight even if they don’t quiiiite fit into tech death). If anyone is interested, I can also post an “Honorable Mentions” list: I tend to be a completist myself, so I know I appreciate any opportunity to find anything that escaped my notice throughout the year.
With no further ado, please comment your AOTY 2023 nominations. Any band that is added will go into the poll. Repeats are totally ok, and please feel free to upvote any favorites that others mention, but only the poll will determine the community AOTY list. Suggested format for clarity: {Band} - {Album}.
Edit: nominations will be open through the end of next weekend, so end of Sunday Jan 14
I’ll go first:
Carnosus - Visions of Infinihility
My AOTY is To The Grave - Director’s Cut, but for tech death I’d go with:
The Eating Cave - The Miscalculation
Let’s keep this going, I’m hoping to have enough submissions to do a proper poll.
Fracturus - Versus the Void
I’m kinda on the fence about them being tech death, so feel free to ignore this.
But I still say Kataklysm, Goliath was the best metal album of 2023. They kinda work on the edges of tech death, so they may be in the off-genre category, I dunno. But Holy fuck is that a great album. Just wall to wall brutality to your ears.