Ten Raddest Records of 2023

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Many artists released new records in 2023. These are a few I listened to a lot. Fair warning: it was a big year for synth punk and hardcore.

10. Hez Panamaniacs

There’s always one banger of an album that sneaks in at the end of the year and in 2023 it’s Hez, a band I’ve never seen and hadn’t heard about it until I caught wind of the crazy shit that went down at The Tower Bar at the end of November. The band’s show had to be moved at the last minute after a Prius smashed into the bar. In fact, the Prius hit the exact spot where the band posed for a photo before leaving to grab a bite to eat. (If you’re keeping track, this is the third time a car has crashed into The Tower Bar. I wrote all about it in the next issue of Razorcake and you definitely want to read this story because it’s loaded with crazy coincidences.) Anyway, Hez came all the way from Panama, had a brush with death, and they fucking rule. Fast, noisy, and right on the edge of out-of-control. What’s not to love?

9. CIVIC Taken By Force

I’ll admit it: I didn’t like Taken By Force as much as I liked Future Forecast, but so what? There’s really only one song that doesn’t do it for me, a sappy little song called “Blood Rushes” that has a Weirdos riff in it that I can’t unhear. The record still rips. I saw this Australian band play here in San Diego to a half-empty room on a Tuesday night. A criminally underrated band.

8. Das Damen 1986: Keeps Me Wild

Technically, this is an EP and a reissue of Trick Question, but it comes with so much bonus material that it delivers a whole new experience. What EP has 17 tracks?! I interviewed Lyle Hysen about the record for Message from the Underworld so I don’t have a lot more to say about it other than how fucking cool it is. The zine that comes with the record is like a time capsule to 1986.

7. MESS Under Attack

I had to squeeze at least one band riding the resurgence of Oi! onto this list. MESS from Guadalajara has some of the cleanest, coldest riffs on this side of the Atlantic. Forget Chelsea, this guitar work would not be out of place on a Flock of Seagulls record.

6. MSPAINT Post-American

I love it when bands choose awkward and difficult to search band name like last year’s Woodstock ’99 and the infamous Meth Teeth. (Go ahead, type that into your search engine, I dare you, but you will regret it.) MSPAINT is a noisy synth-punk band that’s heavy and smart. The lyrics are shouted rather than sung with a knack for repetition and wordplay that’s like a biscuit belt version of Idles—except no one’s wanking on their guitar in MSPAINT. Post-American isn’t a record I listened to over and over again because each play felt like an experience, like I went through something. Synth punk for thinking people. Highly recommended.

5. Osees Intercepted Message

I wasn’t a big Osees fan (or Thee Oh Sees) before this record but watching this live performance of the new album made me a fan. I dig the driving synth and have always been a sucker for hot double drummer action.  

4. Die Spitz Teeth

There was a time when I was gearing up for my book tour that I watched this video for “Hair of Dog” every day. It was my morning pep talk. Then I got to see Die Spitz play with OFF! in Chicago and they were great. Since then they’ve toured with Amyl and the Sniffers, which must have been wild, and they’re playing with The Spits next year, just as a the gods foretold.

3. Gel Only Constant

I listened to a lot of hardcore fronted by women this year and I think we’re finally at a point where reviewers can stop pointing out the genders of the players—except when it comes to husky dudes. Because if you don’t have a long-haired dude in Dickies shorts, a baseball cap, and a snug-fitting 2XL hoodie in your band, are you really hardcore? Gel has fucking three of these dudes. Ferocious.

2. Blackbraid Blackbraid II

If you were walking along the dark stretch of freeway between San Onofre and Oceanside in the middle of the night and you heard something that sounded like the fevered screams of hell as a car raced past, that was me listening to Blackbraid and trying to stay awake. Blackbraid is atmospheric black metal by indigenous Americans. The songs are long. Nine, ten, twelve minutes long with titles like “Moss Covered Bones on the Altar of the Moon.” These are songs that take you places. There are times when it sounds like overheated Metallica riffs at three hundred beats per minute. But you know something? I’d rather listen to overheated Metallica riffs at 300 bpm than anything by Metallica after And Justice for All but that’s me. It's not just blast beats and epic riffs. There’s acoustic guitar and a flute. A fucking flute. It’s not something I pop on the turntable on a Sunday morning, but if I’m doing some night traveling I know Blackbraid won’t let me down.

1. Drain Living Proof

I was dicking around on iTunes while running errands earlier this year and came across a new single by Drain, a cover of the Descendents “Good Good Things.” I was hooked. I’d heard enough of Drain’s previous album to know that the vocals on the upcoming record would be a bit more intense than what was showcased on the single, but for a band I hardly knew I looked forward to the release date with great anticipation. The record coincided with the release of Make It Stop and I spent a ton of time listening to Drain while driving around the Southwest. It’s 27 minutes long, making it the perfect length for workouts in my motel room. It’s the album I would use to kick off a long drive. Drain combines metal and hardcore in a way that is relentlessly upbeat and a lot of that comes down to the singeer and his infectious positivity. He presents himself as the perfect mix of someone who takes what he does very seriously but is able to roll with the punches and go with the flow. These are good qualities when the stage is routinely invaded by headbangers launching themselves into the crowd. My only regret with this record is that I didn’t get to see Drain play it live. I mean look how much fun these people are having. It’s like a pool party but instead of a pool it’s a sea of bodies. If there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to jump into the pit dressed like a punk rock pirate with a foam sword, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe it’s time to take up stamp collecting.  

Things I’m looking forward to in 2024

New records from bands with one-word names: Sweat from SoCal, Rifle from London, and Šmierč from Finland.

RIP Cayle Sain

I don’t listen to Spotify enough to pay attention to what it thinks I like but I do listen to iTunes a lot when I’m in the car and it reliably serves up music it thinks I’ll like. This year I listened to a lot of Trapped Under Ice, Mizery, and Downpresser thanks to the old algo. When I say a lot of Downpresser, I mean a lot. After Drain, I listened to more Downpresser than anything else.

What two of those bands have in common—Mizery and Downpresser—is drummer Cayle Sain who passed away last week. Sain has been playing in the band Twitching Tongues since 2015 and his bandmates had nothing but nice things to say about him. My thoughts go out to his friends and family.

Unlike a book or a movie that we can revisit any time we like, there’s no substitute for live music. When one of the players passes on, that’s it. Yes, we can always go listen to their records, but the magic that happens between artists on stage will never happen again.

There’s a Downpresser song that incorporates a big block of silence—33 seconds to be exact—in the middle of the song. I’ve been thinking about what that silence means so much that it has worked its way into my novel-in-progress. It seems fitting to end this year with a moment of silence from ten years ago.

If you’re new-ish here and you liked this newsletter you might also like my new novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get Orca Alert! every Sunday. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, and science you may have missed while trying to avoid the awful news of the day.