COUNT VLAD'S AOTY LIST OF 2023

 

The pretentious mainstream hipster elitist poser's AOTY list of 2023 is here. The ultimate list that makes them all lists. My favorite releases of the year 2023. It features everything that I enjoyed the most throughout this already-dead and-gone year. 

When I was preparing this list I looked into all my notes, went through all the monthly lists that I published here and revisited quite a lot of albums. And I must admit that basically, everyone could have a spot in the AOTY lists. It has been a really crazy year - an enormous amount of releases, thousands of bands, and very good albums shortlisted. Literally, almost every band on Earth put out a new album!

I already published My Top 50 Death Metal Albums of 2023 and My Top 50 Black Metal Albums of 2023. Of course, there are some omissions, I realize this. The good news is that I can return to my monthly selections anytime and revisit the good ones. Every time I find a forgotten gem there. You should do the same. 

While preparing the AOTY list, I followed the orders I put in the above-mentioned DM and BM lists, adding the albums out of these genres. Not sure that in the big picture this list looks OK as a final order. I like too many albums and depending on the mood and the circumstances, some of them took over others and so on. Especially now in December. That's why I tried to really reflect through the past months and to give as much as rightful perspective to this AOTY list - what I liked the most, what I listened to the most. This means I might have left some very good albums out of the list, that anyway are in my monthly tops. Is it the ultimate list? I can't tell. Next week it might be in a different order.

Let's see what will stay in the future and how these will perform. I guess not everything has the staying power that I always hope for (as it was with the albums 30+ years ago, that we all know and carry in our hearts).

Naturally, there might be only one Number 1 when Metallica pulls an album out of their sleeve. 72 Seasons beats the shit out of everything else. James is GOD. It is a great album, and everyone must be grateful that we still have bands like Metallica, Judas Priest, Saxon, etc. that in 2023/24 keep on delivering! Few more years they will be dead and gone. And honestly, there aren't many substitutes to fill in the blanks.

I put 56 on the list here because of the collage's options. Easily I could make it 100 or 200, but there is no need. As I stated above, I go through my monthly lists and my notes, and all albums there deserve high praise. This blog contains proper information for the next generations, doesn't it?

Cheers to another great year, and thank you for reading this! 

My AOTY LIST OF 2023. 

1. Metallica - 72 Seasons

2. The Night Eternal - Fatale

3. Restless Spirit - Afterimage

4. Downfall of Gaia - Silhouettes of Disgust

5. Spirit Adrift - Ghost At The Gallows

6. Afterbirth - In But Not Of

7. Sulphur Aeon - Seven Crowns and Seven Seals

8. Blood Abscission - I

9. Enslaved - Heimdal

10. Kill Devil Hill - Seas Of Oblivion

11. Intöxicated - Sadistic Nightmares

12. FlesheR - Tales of Grotesque Demise

13. Nervosa - Jailbreak

14. Dying Fetus - Make Them Beg for Death

15. Marduk - Memento Mori

16. Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

17. Suffocation - Hymns From the Apocrypha

18. VoidCeremony - Threads Of Unknowing

19. Crypta - Shades Of Sorrow

20. Helleruin - Devils, Death and Dark Arts

21. Uada - Crepuscule Natura

22. Imperium Dekadenz - Into Sorrow Evermore

23. Marthe - Further In Evil

24. EVILCULT - The Devil is Always Looking for Souls

25. Fen - Monuments to Absence

26. Immortal - War Against All

27. Besra - Transitions

28. GROTESQUERIES - Vile Crematory

29. Disguised Malignance - Entering The Gateways

30. Cryptopsy - As Gomorrah Burns

31. Vomitory - All Heads Are Gonna Roll

32. Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit

33. The Zenith Passage - Datalysium

34. Concilium - Sky Bvrial

35. Kataklysm - Goliath

36. Milking the Goatmachine - Neue Platte

37. Primal Fear - Code Red

38. Hellripper - Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags

39. Godflesh - Purge

40. Fossilization - Leprous Daylight

41. Zach Schottler - Out of the City

42. Krallice - Porous Resonance Abyss

43. Clandestine Blaze - Resacralize The Unknown

44. Sulfuric Hatred - Sulfuric Hatred

45. Cobra Spell - 666

46. Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Kings Of The Asylum

47. Blut aus Nord - ​Disharmonium - Nahab

48. Nothingness - Supraliminal

49. Cruciamentum - Obsidian Refractions

50. Humanity's Last Breath - Ashen

51. Overkill - Scorched

52. Nightmarer - Deformity Adrift

53. ABYSSAL RIFT - Extirpation Dirge

54. Night Crowned - Tales

55. Inculter - Morbid Origin

56. Non Est Deus - Legacy